I found it good, but far from great and I have been facing the ramifications the last couple of days. My review in my linked name.

And thanks to Scarlett for pointing me toward Craigslist for a web designer.

I found it good, but far from great and I have been facing the ramifications the last couple of days. My review in my linked name.

And thanks to Scarlett for pointing me toward Craigslist for a web designer.

Transformers was just the worst.

Transformers was just the worst.

This was a very intelligent v-log, and I must say that I found many of your points quite convincing.
All in all I also found this to be a very enjoyable movie, and I’m willing to forgive the flaws it has because of that.

Also, in regards to your point about footage from the trailers not being in the movie, an example that stands out in my mind is the Return of the King trailer. It included the scene where the witch king confronts Gandalf in Minas Tirith immediatly before Rohan arrives. I was really suprised when Rohan showed up and that scene didn’t happen. It was included in the extended edition, but I was still disappointed that it wasn’t in the theatrical release.

This was a very intelligent v-log, and I must say that I found many of your points quite convincing.
All in all I also found this to be a very enjoyable movie, and I’m willing to forgive the flaws it has because of that.

Also, in regards to your point about footage from the trailers not being in the movie, an example that stands out in my mind is the Return of the King trailer. It included the scene where the witch king confronts Gandalf in Minas Tirith immediatly before Rohan arrives. I was really suprised when Rohan showed up and that scene didn’t happen. It was included in the extended edition, but I was still disappointed that it wasn’t in the theatrical release.

cant see that movie in my country by now, but i will definatly give it a try

cant see that movie in my country by now, but i will definatly give it a try

Interesting presentation for the movie Spoony. I didn’t see it yet but I know what you are saying that it’s a little annoying when they transform a metaphor in a brick to the face. So what you are saying is that the writer of the movie presented AfricanNigerianAfricans racist towards the aliens as the white people were towards the Africans. That’s a little strange, dare I say arrogant, to say that all humans would unite to be racistxenophobe towards another race although they too , at some time, were being persecuted because of their race. He is saying that humans just want reasons to hate, to persecute someone so they would feel better. I know he wants the audience to feel worse and auto-analyze themselves that they too could have been racist but that’s going a little far especially if they showed little to none scenes of humans who cared about the aliens. One curiosity would be if Spooy ever witnessed cases of racism in his state or maybe America has almost eliminated this kind of issues and he shouldn’t worry to much that the US turns a blind eye towards issues in other countries because others countries do the same and my country as others in the end liberated themselves without direct intervention form outside.

Interesting presentation for the movie Spoony. I didn’t see it yet but I know what you are saying that it’s a little annoying when they transform a metaphor in a brick to the face. So what you are saying is that the writer of the movie presented AfricanNigerianAfricans racist towards the aliens as the white people were towards the Africans. That’s a little strange, dare I say arrogant, to say that all humans would unite to be racistxenophobe towards another race although they too , at some time, were being persecuted because of their race. He is saying that humans just want reasons to hate, to persecute someone so they would feel better. I know he wants the audience to feel worse and auto-analyze themselves that they too could have been racist but that’s going a little far especially if they showed little to none scenes of humans who cared about the aliens. One curiosity would be if Spooy ever witnessed cases of racism in his state or maybe America has almost eliminated this kind of issues and he shouldn’t worry to much that the US turns a blind eye towards issues in other countries because others countries do the same and my country as others in the end liberated themselves without direct intervention form outside.

I haven’t seen the film and won’t until September, but your comments about the portrayal of Nigerians is interesting. In my experience other African countries tend to look down on Nigeria, for reasons i’m not sure of.
Still looking forward to the film. Heavy-handed allegories don’t bother me, as you say they were a staple of SF cinema and television back in the day. And it would be interesting to compare the movie to the abortive Charlie Jade series, the only other South African-set science fiction i’ve seen.

I haven’t seen the film and won’t until September, but your comments about the portrayal of Nigerians is interesting. In my experience other African countries tend to look down on Nigeria, for reasons i’m not sure of.
Still looking forward to the film. Heavy-handed allegories don’t bother me, as you say they were a staple of SF cinema and television back in the day. And it would be interesting to compare the movie to the abortive Charlie Jade series, the only other South African-set science fiction i’ve seen.

Hey spoony nicely spoken, and a well thought discussion. one point on your bit about South Africa, though; and this is not your fault for not knowing, Segregation in South Africa is still alive and thriving in its putrid waste. granted its not politically official, its just governmental impotence and corruption that spreads mistrust among the masses, not helped by affirmative action. now don’t get me wrong, i’m not a white supremicist, black empowerment is a good thing, but not when its undeserved. Unqualified hopefuls are getting promoted above those more qualified, simply by a handicap of skin colour. this would be irrelevent if everything was fair and above board, but more often than not it isn’t. this serves to further racial segregation, rather than heal the damage of Apartheid, they’ve effectively reversed it on a corperate scale.

just so you know i’m not a hate-monger nor a racist, i enjoyed the v-log, i’m simply clarifying something you didn’t know made apparent in the video. i’m simply trying to enlighten you to the truth because i know, i’ve been there and the outlook is still bleak, especially in light of recent election.

sorry if this gets blown out of preportion, i just thought i’d bring my two cents to the board thanks for bringing it up

from an ex-resident of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South africa.

Hey spoony nicely spoken, and a well thought discussion. one point on your bit about South Africa, though; and this is not your fault for not knowing, Segregation in South Africa is still alive and thriving in its putrid waste. granted its not politically official, its just governmental impotence and corruption that spreads mistrust among the masses, not helped by affirmative action. now don’t get me wrong, i’m not a white supremicist, black empowerment is a good thing, but not when its undeserved. Unqualified hopefuls are getting promoted above those more qualified, simply by a handicap of skin colour. this would be irrelevent if everything was fair and above board, but more often than not it isn’t. this serves to further racial segregation, rather than heal the damage of Apartheid, they’ve effectively reversed it on a corperate scale.

just so you know i’m not a hate-monger nor a racist, i enjoyed the v-log, i’m simply clarifying something you didn’t know made apparent in the video. i’m simply trying to enlighten you to the truth because i know, i’ve been there and the outlook is still bleak, especially in light of recent election.

sorry if this gets blown out of preportion, i just thought i’d bring my two cents to the board thanks for bringing it up

from an ex-resident of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South africa.

This is a comment I left on my video, that I think illustrates how the apartheid metaphor is lost:

I believe the much ballyhooed apartheid metaphor is absent from the film, and this is why.

There is a distinct swap between the indigenous forces of reality and the fiction of the film, losing the metaphor. In District 9, the technologically inclined foreigners are the ones facing discrimination. A complete contrast to reality by two accounts; those being that the foreigners (whites) were not discriminated against, and that the technologically advanced (again whites) were not subject to discrimination. A third account can be argued based on population, though in the film it’s difficult to determine who has the numbers edge. Assuming there are less Prawn in the country than humans, (as apposed to city) then the majority (Africans) where not sovereign over the foreigners.

By comparison, the homosexual subtextual metaphor of the X-Men films is much more clever in execution and accuracy.

This is a comment I left on my video, that I think illustrates how the apartheid metaphor is lost:

I believe the much ballyhooed apartheid metaphor is absent from the film, and this is why.

There is a distinct swap between the indigenous forces of reality and the fiction of the film, losing the metaphor. In District 9, the technologically inclined foreigners are the ones facing discrimination. A complete contrast to reality by two accounts; those being that the foreigners (whites) were not discriminated against, and that the technologically advanced (again whites) were not subject to discrimination. A third account can be argued based on population, though in the film it’s difficult to determine who has the numbers edge. Assuming there are less Prawn in the country than humans, (as apposed to city) then the majority (Africans) where not sovereign over the foreigners.

By comparison, the homosexual subtextual metaphor of the X-Men films is much more clever in execution and accuracy.

I tried leaving another comment, but it seems to not being getting through. Sorry if it gummed up your system.

I tried leaving another comment, but it seems to not being getting through. Sorry if it gummed up your system.

You are indeed missing the point, SpoonyOne. The key component in systems of racial control like apartheid involve viewing certain groups as “lesser-than-human,” i.e. vermin or chattel, and with the Prawns this is easy because – well, they aren’t human by esthetic standards. But when we find out that they are just as intelligent and emotional as us, our attitudes change.

Furthermore, I think that the director wanted the audience to believe that these events took place in a kind of alternate timeline on Earth; if you look at the date on the footage of the mothership arrival, the year is 1986. So it’s possible that in this universe, apartheid never existed until the Prawns arrived.

One thing that bugged me about the movie was how the humans and the Prawns were able to understand one another. The aliens had only been on Earth for about twenty years, and yet human and alien talk to one another in their respective languages as if they’re all fluent. How did they learn the Prawn language, and how can the Prawns understand English?

I think that Aliens can’t be so closely related to humanity. I know what he is trying to show humanities flaws Aliens would cause fear and confusion very few could say this is wrong when they have no idea what is going on. Also i like how they are exploring the documentary v reality shots even though it was dissonant but im glad they were not scared to explore and expand on conventional camera usage. And i never new how cheap the budget was wow it gets even more kudos from me.

Good review Spoony

A South American vicar once told us that if an unprotected white man goes there and strays away from the cities, theres a good chance he’l be killed and eaten.

I havn’t actually seen the movie, but most of your points sound pretty good!

A South American vicar once told us that if an unprotected white man goes there and strays away from the cities, theres a good chance he’l be killed and eaten.

I havn’t actually seen the movie, but most of your points sound pretty good!

A South American vicar once told us that if an unprotected white man goes there and strays away from the cities, theres a good chance he’l be killed and eaten.

I havn’t actually seen the movie, but most of your points sound pretty good!

I really liked how observant you with this movie and how you saw how the screenwriter/director was trying to show the audience the effects of the South Africans and how bad the Apartheid was in the past (I don’t think many reviewers but the “two and two” together). I also see why you thought it was a little “slap in the face” how they presented it, but let me explain why you think that way (at first I did too). But for us in America, we have seen our issues with racism in the past. We may have never grown up in the times when it was bad; however, we can read/study the Civil Rights Movements and Slavery and the effect of our Civil War, etc. We have also seen the theme of racism done inevery form of media and just about every possible way here in this country. As a matter of fact, especially where I live in the U.S., racism still is not totally dead (something I totally do not approve of), I see it every day in some places and it’s insulting to my intelligence. In effect of all this knowledge that you and the rest of America has (especially the people that still experience racism in this country today), it seems like “Oh here we go the theme of racism being thrown at us like a brick in the face”. It’s a bridge we do not like to cross because of our history; it, basically, makes our country look bad. But, I don’t think that the U.S. was really the “intended” audience for that theme. I believe it was more for the countries that may have never experienced racism to the affect that the South Africans once had or even America once had, also. I know every country probably has a little racism, but may have never had to the extent of the past America/South Africans. When you look at it that light, It is a fairly ingenious way of showing the Apartheid to the cultures of people that never had to deal with that sort of racism, and shows it in a way they have never seen it before.
Great review Spoony

I really liked how observant you with this movie and how you saw how the screenwriter/director was trying to show the audience the effects of the South Africans and how bad the Apartheid was in the past (I don’t think many reviewers but the “two and two” together). I also see why you thought it was a little “slap in the face” how they presented it, but let me explain why you think that way (at first I did too). But for us in America, we have seen our issues with racism in the past. We may have never grown up in the times when it was bad; however, we can read/study the Civil Rights Movements and Slavery and the effect of our Civil War, etc. We have also seen the theme of racism done inevery form of media and just about every possible way here in this country. As a matter of fact, especially where I live in the U.S., racism still is not totally dead (something I totally do not approve of), I see it every day in some places and it’s insulting to my intelligence. In effect of all this knowledge that you and the rest of America has (especially the people that still experience racism in this country today), it seems like “Oh here we go the theme of racism being thrown at us like a brick in the face”. It’s a bridge we do not like to cross because of our history; it, basically, makes our country look bad. But, I don’t think that the U.S. was really the “intended” audience for that theme. I believe it was more for the countries that may have never experienced racism to the affect that the South Africans once had or even America once had, also. I know every country probably has a little racism, but may have never had to the extent of the past America/South Africans. When you look at it that light, It is a fairly ingenious way of showing the Apartheid to the cultures of people that never had to deal with that sort of racism, and shows it in a way they have never seen it before.
Great review Spoony

To CrimsonDusk:

you’re discounting governmental propaganda, if such athing as alien residency on Earth existed don’t you think it would unite a large majority of governments , who, fearful of losing their control, would incite fear and racial hatred towards people they would label lesser beings, or Aliens. also i think its ironic that the director would make a metaphor about racial segregation during apartheid, when his “aliens” are clearly the ones being subjugated, rather than the reverse, which would be the aliens conquering us and inciting racial prejudice of a “lesser race” which is what happened in Southern/Mid Africa. still i haven’t seen the movie so i’ll reserve any concrete judgement.

To CrimsonDusk:

you’re discounting governmental propaganda, if such athing as alien residency on Earth existed don’t you think it would unite a large majority of governments , who, fearful of losing their control, would incite fear and racial hatred towards people they would label lesser beings, or Aliens. also i think its ironic that the director would make a metaphor about racial segregation during apartheid, when his “aliens” are clearly the ones being subjugated, rather than the reverse, which would be the aliens conquering us and inciting racial prejudice of a “lesser race” which is what happened in Southern/Mid Africa. still i haven’t seen the movie so i’ll reserve any concrete judgement.

Okey, I haven’t seen the movie yet because it’s premiere here in Sweden is the 28th so I guess I have to wait.
But wasn’t it so that the aliens arrived in 1982 when there was still apartheid in south afrika. I agree tho that why did the alien decide to appear there. The thing about falling out of love with them and stuff like that is what happened, atleast that’s what wikipedia says about that.
“The movie takes place in 2010, 28 years after the aliens’ first arrival in 1982. Patience over the alien situation has ran out and control over them was contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare.”

Okey, I haven’t seen the movie yet because it’s premiere here in Sweden is the 28th so I guess I have to wait.
But wasn’t it so that the aliens arrived in 1982 when there was still apartheid in south afrika. I agree tho that why did the alien decide to appear there. The thing about falling out of love with them and stuff like that is what happened, atleast that’s what wikipedia says about that.
“The movie takes place in 2010, 28 years after the aliens’ first arrival in 1982. Patience over the alien situation has ran out and control over them was contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare.”

Awesome review Spoony!, shame us Brits have to wait until September to see this :(

Nice iPhone btw :D

Awesome review Spoony!, shame us Brits have to wait until September to see this :(

Nice iPhone btw :D

I agree that it doesn’t seem too realistic. People are all too willing to ignore other people’s suffering, like we do for Africa today. However, this movie wouldn’t happen because they’re freaking aliens! Not only would people want to save them, in much the same way people fight to save animals while people suffer, but other countries would LOVE to help out the aliens to get access to their knowledge and technology. If it weren’t for the movie being a metaphor, it’d just sound dumb.

Though I haven’t seen the movie yet, so perhaps I don’t know some things. Perhaps the world’s governments had already mastered the alien technology, though then keeping the aliens there when they have working interstellar craft wouldn’t make much sense.

I agree that it doesn’t seem too realistic. People are all too willing to ignore other people’s suffering, like we do for Africa today. However, this movie wouldn’t happen because they’re freaking aliens! Not only would people want to save them, in much the same way people fight to save animals while people suffer, but other countries would LOVE to help out the aliens to get access to their knowledge and technology. If it weren’t for the movie being a metaphor, it’d just sound dumb.

Though I haven’t seen the movie yet, so perhaps I don’t know some things. Perhaps the world’s governments had already mastered the alien technology, though then keeping the aliens there when they have working interstellar craft wouldn’t make much sense.

Yeah, it was rather ham fisted with it’s choice of location, but on the other hand I think the kind of gritty, partially urban South African environment made the aesthetics of movie better than they would be without said environment.

Believe me Spoony most South Africans are enthusiastic racists

Believe me Spoony most South Africans are enthusiastic racists

My comment about white people being eaten was actually about the congo, not south africa, and especially not about south america -_- sorry…

My comment about white people being eaten was actually about the congo, not south africa, and especially not about south america -_- sorry…

I agree with your points, both good and bad, about the movie, Noah, but I would like to add one thing which started out as bad but ended up being good: I HATE SHAKYCAM! That obnoxious “handheld camera running” garbage that filled Cloverfield and Quarantine (and various other movies) is annoying and jarring. That being said, it wasn’t overused in this movie. It was used for effect and drama, and it was done well. It wasn’t used through the whole film, only when it fit the sequences and made it look more realistic. Unlike those other two movies I mentioned, I never found myself thinking “Why in the hell is this person still filming? Drop the camera and get the righteous blue fuck out of there!” Kudos to Peter Jackson for finally toning down the most overused camera effect since bullet time.

I agree with your points, both good and bad, about the movie, Noah, but I would like to add one thing which started out as bad but ended up being good: I HATE SHAKYCAM! That obnoxious “handheld camera running” garbage that filled Cloverfield and Quarantine (and various other movies) is annoying and jarring. That being said, it wasn’t overused in this movie. It was used for effect and drama, and it was done well. It wasn’t used through the whole film, only when it fit the sequences and made it look more realistic. Unlike those other two movies I mentioned, I never found myself thinking “Why in the hell is this person still filming? Drop the camera and get the righteous blue fuck out of there!” Kudos to Peter Jackson for finally toning down the most overused camera effect since bullet time.

While it wasn’t made clear I do believe that this movie was supposed to be set in an Alternate Universe Earth/South Africa, where the apartheid as we knew it never happened but instead the apartheid against the “Prawns” happened instead. Still hamfisted in ways, I agree, but then again…

While it wasn’t made clear I do believe that this movie was supposed to be set in an Alternate Universe Earth/South Africa, where the apartheid as we knew it never happened but instead the apartheid against the “Prawns” happened instead. Still hamfisted in ways, I agree, but then again…

I thought it was a great movie, I honestly had no real problems with the movie. I feel they don’t focus on the relationship between the regular human populace and the aliens as much as the relationship between the humans and the government. I agree with Spoony that some of the racist symbolism was a little heavy handed, now that I think about it, I do think this provides realistic speculative fiction which we haven’t seen a lot of lately. The film really explores how humans might deal with the Aliens and I think this movie works better as a piece of speculative fiction than a statement about racism. Also, I thought the main actor’s acting job was excellent considering it is his first time acting and he basically has to converse with nothing for the entire film because the aliens are CG. Also, it reminded me a lot of Terminator which also had a really small budget, but it looked like a big budget film. I always like the points Spoony makes and I honestly wish he could do more of these Vlogs where he reviews current films. The last one he did was for the Transformers 2. I actually think this movie belongs on the tier with Alien or The Thing or Terminator or any of those speculative fiction movies.

I thought it was a great movie, I honestly had no real problems with the movie. I feel they don’t focus on the relationship between the regular human populace and the aliens as much as the relationship between the humans and the government. I agree with Spoony that some of the racist symbolism was a little heavy handed, now that I think about it, I do think this provides realistic speculative fiction which we haven’t seen a lot of lately. The film really explores how humans might deal with the Aliens and I think this movie works better as a piece of speculative fiction than a statement about racism. Also, I thought the main actor’s acting job was excellent considering it is his first time acting and he basically has to converse with nothing for the entire film because the aliens are CG. Also, it reminded me a lot of Terminator which also had a really small budget, but it looked like a big budget film. I always like the points Spoony makes and I honestly wish he could do more of these Vlogs where he reviews current films. The last one he did was for the Transformers 2. I actually think this movie belongs on the tier with Alien or The Thing or Terminator or any of those speculative fiction movies.

I believe the racism towards the aliens comes from them being a major nuisance for society. Some of the earlier interview footage with the lady who is head of alien affairs (or something) says that the aliens enjoy causing mayhem and take joy in blowing things up such as trucks and what have you. She also claims that the aliens don’t have any sense of ownership which for me brings up images of the aliens just walking into people’s houses and sitting down and taking whatever they want when they leave. I would imagine that people’s patience with the aliens would grow thin after a time and society would want them put into District 9. I would imagine that the guns and mechs would also cause a lot of fear for us. Sure, they might not be waging war, but with a strange race walking around with guns that can atomize anyone which only they can use, I would be a little bit worried. This is shown by the obsession MNU operatives seem to have with confiscating their technology, humans obviously fear what the aliens can do with their guns.

With regards to the trailers, yeah I kept noticing that through the movie as well. I think that either the trailers were intended as a pure hype machine just there to kind of explain the situation so the viewer and jump in the movie without much explanation required or the scenes were cut from the movie because they didn’t have much significance to the story of Wikus and Christopher. Maybe both? I hope a directors cut comes out with some of those scenes put in.

I believe the racism towards the aliens comes from them being a major nuisance for society. Some of the earlier interview footage with the lady who is head of alien affairs (or something) says that the aliens enjoy causing mayhem and take joy in blowing things up such as trucks and what have you. She also claims that the aliens don’t have any sense of ownership which for me brings up images of the aliens just walking into people’s houses and sitting down and taking whatever they want when they leave. I would imagine that people’s patience with the aliens would grow thin after a time and society would want them put into District 9. I would imagine that the guns and mechs would also cause a lot of fear for us. Sure, they might not be waging war, but with a strange race walking around with guns that can atomize anyone which only they can use, I would be a little bit worried. This is shown by the obsession MNU operatives seem to have with confiscating their technology, humans obviously fear what the aliens can do with their guns.

With regards to the trailers, yeah I kept noticing that through the movie as well. I think that either the trailers were intended as a pure hype machine just there to kind of explain the situation so the viewer and jump in the movie without much explanation required or the scenes were cut from the movie because they didn’t have much significance to the story of Wikus and Christopher. Maybe both? I hope a directors cut comes out with some of those scenes put in.

I love Weta Workshop / Digital

Weta > HollyWood

I love Weta Workshop / Digital

Weta > HollyWood

One movie which was absolutely terrible for being different from the trailer has to be Black Christmas ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l2qxzJWKXs )

According to IMDB, these scenes weren’t in the movie

- An unknown caller ringing. When the girls answer, he replies “All is calm, all is bright, who is in my house tonight?”
- A woman rubbing the snow off her car and a hand reaching through it.
- A woman falling off the roof tangled in christmas lights.
- A woman being dragged through the snow by a christmas lights machine.
- Melissa in the hallway with a flashlight while Billy is on the ceiling ready to strike with an axe.

Surely the studio should be held accountable for false advertising for a trailer with so much added to it?

One movie which was absolutely terrible for being different from the trailer has to be Black Christmas ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l2qxzJWKXs )

According to IMDB, these scenes weren’t in the movie

- An unknown caller ringing. When the girls answer, he replies “All is calm, all is bright, who is in my house tonight?”
- A woman rubbing the snow off her car and a hand reaching through it.
- A woman falling off the roof tangled in christmas lights.
- A woman being dragged through the snow by a christmas lights machine.
- Melissa in the hallway with a flashlight while Billy is on the ceiling ready to strike with an axe.

Surely the studio should be held accountable for false advertising for a trailer with so much added to it?

A very good Vlog. However, in regards to your disbelief of the cruelty shown in the film, you kind of answered your own question. You admit yourself that you, and many other people, don’t know that much about any of the racial prejudice occuring in the world. So, in a sense, hasn’t “District 9″ done a lot more than you think?

A very good Vlog. However, in regards to your disbelief of the cruelty shown in the film, you kind of answered your own question. You admit yourself that you, and many other people, don’t know that much about any of the racial prejudice occuring in the world. So, in a sense, hasn’t “District 9″ done a lot more than you think?

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the heavily, HEAVILY overblown parallels are for the people who enjoyed transformers. You know, people whose mental faculties might need that extra ‘brick to the head’ to get the film’s point across.

You’re definetly right on the point, that if a movie chooses a format it should keep to this one format as much as possible. But i kinda think it’s like the Acient egyptian documentaries on Discovery where they sometimes show you what they thought happened. Like if there were fighting they show show you two guys in the clothes of acient egypt battle each other but the storytelling voice would still be over it.

You’re definetly right on the point, that if a movie chooses a format it should keep to this one format as much as possible. But i kinda think it’s like the Acient egyptian documentaries on Discovery where they sometimes show you what they thought happened. Like if there were fighting they show show you two guys in the clothes of acient egypt battle each other but the storytelling voice would still be over it.

I really enjoyed District 9. I do agree that the documentary bit jarred with the more cinematic scenes. Personally I’d have dropped the docu-film segments completely and gone all cinematic but I think Spoony’s idea of a completely documentary style film would be very interesting.

My only real complaint was the use of South Africa as a setting. The Aparteid (I’m sure thats spelt wrong) references were far to in your face. IMO the films message would have been more effective if it had been set in a country that is not known for extreme racism like England or Canada.

I really enjoyed District 9. I do agree that the documentary bit jarred with the more cinematic scenes. Personally I’d have dropped the docu-film segments completely and gone all cinematic but I think Spoony’s idea of a completely documentary style film would be very interesting.

My only real complaint was the use of South Africa as a setting. The Aparteid (I’m sure thats spelt wrong) references were far to in your face. IMO the films message would have been more effective if it had been set in a country that is not known for extreme racism like England or Canada.

I have mixed feelings towards this movie, primarily due to the jarring perspectives found in this film that Spoony mentioned. I think I would’ve prefered if the entire movie had this feel and perspective of a documentary, because I thought that was really original and imaginitive for a sci-fi movie, and when I saw it shift perspectives, I thought that the movie has worsen because of that.

I have mixed feelings towards this movie, primarily due to the jarring perspectives found in this film that Spoony mentioned. I think I would’ve prefered if the entire movie had this feel and perspective of a documentary, because I thought that was really original and imaginitive for a sci-fi movie, and when I saw it shift perspectives, I thought that the movie has worsen because of that.

Sometimes it seems like we’ve rolled back to the 40s and 50s, when movie metaphors lacked any subtlety at all. Filmmaking 101: Show, don’t tell, guys!

just want to comment on something mattman said.
“But, I don’t think that the U.S. was really the “intended” audience for that theme. I believe it was more for the countries that may have never experienced racism to the affect that the South Africans once had or even America once had”

i think every country on earth knows what racism is to that extend, it kind of sounds like only those 2 countrys know it to that extend…it kinda made me mad. i mean its like taking the morale highground and you saying to the rest of the world, you should watch this movie, you might learn someting, something the US and SA already know.
i mean ever heard of WWII or the balkan wars or Chechnya, or the Castes in india or,……
so its dangerous to think its not targeted at the US adience

just want to comment on something mattman said.
“But, I don’t think that the U.S. was really the “intended” audience for that theme. I believe it was more for the countries that may have never experienced racism to the affect that the South Africans once had or even America once had”

i think every country on earth knows what racism is to that extend, it kind of sounds like only those 2 countrys know it to that extend…it kinda made me mad. i mean its like taking the morale highground and you saying to the rest of the world, you should watch this movie, you might learn someting, something the US and SA already know.
i mean ever heard of WWII or the balkan wars or Chechnya, or the Castes in india or,……
so its dangerous to think its not targeted at the US adience

just want to comment on something mattman said.
“But, I don’t think that the U.S. was really the “intended” audience for that theme. I believe it was more for the countries that may have never experienced racism to the affect that the South Africans once had or even America once had”

i think every country on earth knows what racism is to that extend, it kind of sounds like only those 2 countrys know it to that extend…it kinda made me mad. i mean its like taking the morale highground and you saying to the rest of the world, you should watch this movie, you might learn someting, something the US and SA already know.
i mean ever heard of WWII or the balkan wars or Chechnya, or the Castes in india or,……
so its dangerous to think its not targeted at the US adience

Ya spoony i would have to agree on the metaphor of aliens taking the place of black people being segregated but if you may have missed it that originally humans were happy aliens had come and only after people were told they were there to stay which was 20 years after did people get angry that 1.5 million aliens would be fighting for control of food and land. Also many are afraid of the aliens because sometimes they kill people for there clothes and stuff
which was the same as what the Nigerians were doing to them.

Noah Antwiler! Your average white guy!…that’s pretty much the only thing I kept thinking during the review after you said that.

Noah Antwiler! Your average white guy!…that’s pretty much the only thing I kept thinking during the review after you said that.

** THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS COMMENT **

Just to be clear, I loved the movie. I thought it was a brilliant concept and executed wonderfully. But, like yourself Spoony, I do have some nerd concerns.

I agree with the points you made about the aliens being treated like trash.

I think the director was trying to make a genuinely hamfisted comparison to Apartheid, and in the process managed to suspend disbelief that there would be absolutely zero influence outside SA and the MTU. You could bet your bottom dollar that every government in the land would want access to these beings, and SA is hardly that significant and powerful that it could resist any sort of UN/US intervention.

I mean, come on, Aliens come to earth, so we dump them in a slum, and leave them alone while they create significant amounts of weaponry, breed and do god knows what else? The MTU seem so shocked by everything that they do, you’d think that the obviously intelligent species would have been studied, the ship comprehensively analysed and the aliens questioned in a manner that should suggest respect.

They briefly mention the UIO, which seems to be a UN style Aid organisation that “puts pressure” on MTU, but i heavily doubt that any government would hand over control of such a sensitive subject to a private military corporation.

the reason the humans became disenfranchised with the aliens is because they were vile scavengers the ones in the begining for instance are drones

the reason the humans became disenfranchised with the aliens is because they were vile scavengers the ones in the begining for instance are drones

the reason the humans became disenfranchised with the aliens is because they were vile scavengers the ones in the begining for instance are drones

About the screen writing question: if it’s to connect to the characters, it’s okay to change point of view.

About the screen writing question: if it’s to connect to the characters, it’s okay to change point of view.

The documentary was the orginal short film Neil did so thats why there’s the mix

The documentary was the orginal short film Neil did so thats why there’s the mix

Well, a few things about this movie and what you said that are my personal interpretation.

You said that they should have shown the aliens landing and we starting out as viewing them as cool and all and their falling from grace in the public opinion etc. I think that would have worked for another type of movie about this, but would have undone this movie. The Prawns are almost literally stand-ins for the black people during the apartheid. They look a bit like them, they act like them, they dress like them, they live like them etc etc. If they had been shown arriving on earth, it would have established them more as aliens and would have hurt the paralel between the Prawns and the black people. The way it was shown here was a stronger paralell for the situation in South Africa. What you discribed would have been more of a paralell for the immigrant workers in America.

Personally, I hated the docu style filming of the first half hour. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for it at the time when I saw the movie, but that part, altho clever, dulled me out and felt like it dragged on far to long and the fragmented nature of it started to annoy me. The movie quality action scenes at the end actually got me back up from my slouched position again and dragged back my interest. Without them, this movie would not have been as entertaining for me by far and would just have felt like a hamfisted lecture.

Well, a few things about this movie and what you said that are my personal interpretation.

You said that they should have shown the aliens landing and we starting out as viewing them as cool and all and their falling from grace in the public opinion etc. I think that would have worked for another type of movie about this, but would have undone this movie. The Prawns are almost literally stand-ins for the black people during the apartheid. They look a bit like them, they act like them, they dress like them, they live like them etc etc. If they had been shown arriving on earth, it would have established them more as aliens and would have hurt the paralel between the Prawns and the black people. The way it was shown here was a stronger paralell for the situation in South Africa. What you discribed would have been more of a paralell for the immigrant workers in America.

Personally, I hated the docu style filming of the first half hour. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for it at the time when I saw the movie, but that part, altho clever, dulled me out and felt like it dragged on far to long and the fragmented nature of it started to annoy me. The movie quality action scenes at the end actually got me back up from my slouched position again and dragged back my interest. Without them, this movie would not have been as entertaining for me by far and would just have felt like a hamfisted lecture.

You are absolutely right about the symbolism. It’s so in your face you can hardly breathe. It’s relentless, and I too felt like this was a “history for dummies” course; my intelligence was not given due credit at all.

Some of the action was pretty cool, and overall it was somewhat entertaining, but I’m not as enthusiastic about it as you, I’d say it was okay.

Maybe the whole point of the “obvious methaphore” is that something like apartheit could happen again under our very eyes. Being only obvious to an outside viewer. In my country there is a new political movement that is essentialy racist, being hostile to non western immigrants as its main point. If you can imagine a sliding scale scenario, appartheid can become a reality again right here, in the “civilized” west. Racism is not something that just pops up, its a gradual process. What the film does is showing how normal rasism can become in a short timespan.

(excuse me for the bad spelling btw)

Yeah,Sponny you´r right. The movie shouldnt had been shot on South Africa but in the US, talk about making a point about racism.Ups…

Nice review, it’s good to have a counter-point to all those glowing reviews about the film so far. I’ve been really gearing up to go see this, because like you said, the summer line-up has been shit-on-a-stick (aliens in the attic? Seriously? *groan* Please kill me…). I still really want to see this, and i will enjoy it no matter what, as i’ve been waiting for another good science fiction movie since Fifth Element and The Spirits Within. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t get released here in the UK until 4th sept.

Also, i love the way you sound like Cartman from South Park when you say “naivety”… heehee, “You will respect my authority!”. Great stuff, keep it up man, hope your still liking your new digs!

It was MNU, not MTU. Dork.

I do agree with a lot of your points, and I still felt like this was a great movie despite its faults. It was an original concept in a sea of mediocrity, and I felt it was executed really well. And about the heavy handed metaphors, unfortunately I feel that it’s become necessary in this age of Transformers and (dare I say it) Twilight. People won’t really notice it unless it’s presented to them. Like with The Matrix and V for Vendetta, the symbolism and the themes were pretty obvious, but that’s what is needed to actually get people talking about it. Films have to present the message, and then the people talk about it and interpret it as they will. And while it’s extremely regrettable that films have to be dumbed down a bit, to have something amongst the special effect fueled headaches nowadays that can actually get people to think is a huge accomplishment.

I agree with the documentary style that you support. When you brought up the lack of wonder by the people I think that you aren’t acknowledging the length of time between the landing and when the movie takes place. It’s almost thirty years afterwards.

Nice accent.

Well, the movie is a sucess to say the least.
I think you had to really try to find any flaws in this film. I do think a lot of you are missing the point. It is not a direct critic of apartheid or specific examples of racisim in any particualr country. But more of an example of the ease at which all human beings seem to fall into racist behavior so easily. There is an irony to the once oppressed becoming the oppressors themselves.
Racisim is still a problem in South Africa, just as it is still a huge problem here in America. This movie forces us to confront ourselves and ask if we are racisit or not, and proposes that we ought to change.

At your suggestion, I stopped the video at 3:43. I’ll watch the rest when I get back from seeing it this afternoon. =)

I admit that a lot of your points are valid spoony. In fact the only two that I can even say anything against is that:

1: the documentary wasn’t about the prawns in general, it was about wickus and his assistance to the prawns, therefore the bits of history you get are only positioned to show the atmosphere at the time of Wickus’ infection. Also, the prawns are found living in squalor and not that many express above average intelligence (with the exception of Chester). In fact, the prawns are described as workers without a queen, so humanity would quickly become tired.

Also, the documentary was supposed to be biased as it showed that even the media was racist.

2: Admittedly, the warlord was shown as batshit crazy. Now, there is actually a parallel, with the cannibalism of albinos in South Africa. Now, that practice has become very rare but it does exist in a much smaller amount.

I agree though that most science fiction films don’t dare to ask big questions or try to be relevant anymore.

Ack, despite the excellent review I was constantly drawn to your fascinating screensaver. What IS that?

this movie was…GREAT. aside from up, its definitely the best movie i’ve seen all year!

You could same “tame”, “settle”, or “orderly” rather than “civilised”.

Reticule: Was it really necessary to insult because of a typo? Grow up.

While I haven’t seen the film and won’t until September, I’m not really bothered about the issue of spoilers, so I relish the opportunity to read reviews.

Ultimately, I think D9 is a bit of a sad indictment of the state of science fiction in Hollywood. For too many Hollywood execs (and the public at large), science fiction means action, big explosions, aliens, spaceships and such. “Independence Day”, “Total Recall”, “Transformers” and the like. While I’m delighted that the film even goes into the philosophical territory, the fact that it’s yet another action film by the end is disappointing. Otherwise intellectual and intelligent films like “Sunshine” started off great before going all Die Hard. Any attempts to make non-intense SF either fail miserably at the box office (Bicentennial Man, 2002 Solaris, S1m0ne, Code 46) or are pumped full of sentimentality and schmaltz (The Last Mimzy, A.I., ET), or not really regarded as SF at all (Wall-E, Eternal Sunshine). The mere fact that the most exciting thing to come out of western cinema is, at its core, a riff on the established “Alien Nation” film & series complete with the mystery action-thriller setup shows just how badly western visual SF has dug itself into a corner.

While I enjoy a good action film or thriller, I look at all the literature in SF and lament how the genre’s so pigeonholed in Hollywood. Look at the list of science fiction films, and see how many of them are either war films, action films, or thrillers. Obviously the market/demand has a lot to do with it, but it’s still a bit of a shame that the only visual western SF that can afford to make allusions and explorations of the human condition without the whiz-bangs of Sci-Fi is the TV anthology show (Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside/Crypt). I’m pretty excited about “Moon”, but again, that’s a thriller. About the only SF film I’m looking forward to that isn’t an action/thriller is “The Time Traveller’s Wife”, and even it’s saddled with the “chick flick” categorizing. *Sigh* Oh well.

I’ll undoubtedly see and probably enjoy D9, but like Spoony, I’d probably much rather they went into the documentary approach. The idea of following the “falling out of love” with the wonder and mystery of aliens is a truly brilliant concept which would make a great movie, IMO.

I just didn’t get the Wilkus (whatever) character. It was so inconsistant.

one second he’s crying about a few Prawns getting beaten up, and the next he’s laughing and making jokes about how the baby-prawns he’s flamethrowing sound like popcorn. Uhh…… What?

His character shifted so much I had no idea if he was good not. It made no sense and had no consistancy.

The video doesn’t load and I’ve been waiting over 20 minutes now.

I agree with you 99%, but considering the absolute crappy movies that came in the past year or two, I am more than willing to over look these flaws. I mean I could sit here and nit pick at a bunch of little flaws here and there but isn’t that kindda like if somebody gave you like $10,000 for nothing and you just turning around and start complaining that the bills are not crisp enough ?? As far as sci-fi cinema goes now days I am treasuring this little gem, and not bitch n moan over it.

I am distracted by your mouse, Spoony.

Great little video, Spoony.
I was wondering about this movie.

Great little video, Spoony.
I was wondering about this movie.

Thinking about it, noise in the bakground might be AC.

The Nigerian witch doctor that wants to eat Wikus’ hand is based off of real events in which Nigerian witch doctors or shamans would hunt down and kill albinos to get powers or some such thing.

http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/01/24/tanzania-albino-hunting-update/

I loved the movie, but I do get some of your points. But then again, the aliens arrived on earth 10 years before the end of apartheid so its not hard to think that they would have been but in the lowest cast in Africa. I also felt the shift from documentary style to a more cinematic style was great, the stuff at the beginning was a little but of a bore.

like you said noah, there is a lot of violence that takes place in southern parts of africa that america doesn’t know about. Why? Well, there is already the assumption that AIDs came from african’s having sex with animals and leaving there open wounds in animal blood. Alot of district 9 had to do with some pretty deep subjects over there, while we in america worry about rising gas prices, south africans worry about there villages(yes villages) being raided. A lot of deep seeded hate over there.

Noah, my friend, seriously, if aliens arrived on the earth today with their hands extended in friendship and expecting open arms… they’d be fucked… they’d be Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo’d in their asses.

Xenophobia is too deeply rooted in the common human psyche. Now I haven’t seen the movie (I will), but if I hear you talking about your disbelief regarding the possible absence of human kindness towards extraterrestrial visitors, let me tell you: They’d wanna leave again as soon as possible. I mean, would you stay on a planet where the supreme nation’s ruler starts a war with another nation for a resource that your own race uses as toilet paper (more info on this you can find on Dickipedia)?

So those were my two cents.

PS: You awesum. Excelsior!

The writers are South African, which is why I am inclined to side with them on the racism issue rather than with your gut feeling that is quite obviously influenced by political correctness and liberal guilt. I’m not saying that you are nescessarily wrong, I don’t know any better myself, but you may be.

They had a large ARG for this going, alot of it based around protesters and pro-Prawn people if you’re looking to see more of the open minded, sympathetic people. They didn’t leave them out of the whole thing, but they didn’t much show it in the film. I was kind of hoping that they would play a bigger role. MNUspreadslies.com is part of the ARG and is run by the alien from the movie and has a bit about the protesters and pro alien types.

Scenes that are in the trailer and not in the movie are usually caused by the trailer being finished before the movie: they are scenes that got cut later, not some sort of a dishonest gimmick.

Wow, it’s great to finally see a review that critiques a movie but still stresses it’s value. Many of the flaws you mentioned i agree with entirely, from the awkwardness of being both a documentary and real film, to the blood-splattered camera. I enjoyed District 9 and think it is very entertaining, in spite of it’s flaws. Between the rabid acolytes and the those burned by the hype machine, this was the sort of review i was hoping to find.

I agree with Spoony that there should have been more pro-prawn people/stuff. I also think Spoony is being a tad naive because while there would be a lot more human rights action going on, I would not be all that hard to cover up and testing or research being done. And as long as the media portrays the prawns as beasts or vermin rather than intelligent aliens the people wouldn’t care about the acts committed by the government, which was displayed later in the movie, when the TV says something untrue and the people buy it. I rather enjoyed the turn from Documentary style to action because the beginning was a tad boring, and the action was awesome.

I also had a problem with Wikus. He was a good protagonist but there we some moments when he acted incredibly stupid, taking forever to make seemingly obvious choices, to the point where me and my friends were almost yelling at the screen to hurry the heck up.

But still one of the best movies I have seen in a while.

Oh and Spoony: if you’ve ever seen the Epic Movie, Date movie, etc, they have a lot of deleted scenes in the trailer that weren’t in the movie. Also, who would love an extended edition? Jackson did it with Lord of the Rings, so he’ll probably do it with this movie too.

I haven’t seen the movie yet but I will have to say that they might actually add those scenes in a directors cut or extended edition of some sort, Knowing Peter Jackson.

They did the same thing with Jay and Silen Bob Strike back when they were showing deleted scenes in the movie trailers and tv spots that never made the final cut in the theatrical release but were eventually added as extra DVD Content.

-David

I’m sure people pointed this out, but I think the reason why no one pointed out how simplair D9 was to Apartheid was the fact they were aliens and just don’t care, plus people did (ie the pro-alien protesters) plus Christopher blob (yes he has a blog) notic it’s just minor

are you naive? maybe a bit. You see, when you said that people can’t be that horrible in treating others, well they certainly can! Just read a bit about history like when Spain conquered South America… indigenous (sp?) people were treated like animals, things were so bad that the own priests from the Catholic Church thought they had the brains of a 5 year old and that they needed education to be saved from their savage state. This was prooved wrong, and there are historians who think South American cultures could’ve developed a level of science and technique similar to that found in ancient Greece and Rome.

Now about Affrica, I know the corruption deal and stuff like that too, but what I also am aware of is that albino people are always in danger in most Affrican countries since they are regarded as magical beings whose bones and skin have magic properties that can cure people. Therefore there are people who kill albinos and sell their limbs!

Yes the world is a crazy f*cked up place ^_^

Added:

Well the whole point of the movie is moving the aliens out of D9 to D10, 200 km away form the city. plus again in Christopher’s blog MNU is lying about how the aliens think and act, good explame in the moive is the aliens don’t care about their eggs, which is why no one in the movie bats an eye burning whole nest, the Aliens see cat food as a delicately rather than it’s a drug. So as a result many people see the aliens as dangerous

I think that there was a deeper meaning in the whole racism deal. Not that they simply forgot about the past, but are ignorant to it, and dont think that this is similar in nature to what happened in the past. That the way these aliens are treated are completely different in the past. In a way it shows human’s ignorance to learn from the past and apply that which is taught from the past to the future.

I hate to bring in a gay debate. But many people hate them and want them put in another area entirely or even killed because they are different. These people also tend to see no similarity to what happened to the blacks in an earlier time. As such they are ignorant, though many people do see the similarity and try to stop it, they are met with those who do not. It seems that in the movie, those whom are ignorant make up the greater amount of the population by far, and thats what its trying to show in my own opinion.

Wanna see the worst proof of missing scenes from the trailer in the movie? See the teaser for Star Trek: First Contact. Not only does it have 70% of the scenes missing, some of the scenes were changed later and are different and the rest are scenes from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek VI and even Voyager appears in the trailer… Its.. weird.

A little rant.

I’d have to agree on some point (such as the Africans not realizing the past), but, as compared to most of the recent and not-so-recent sci-fi movies, this was f’ing smart. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone who wants both a good action sci-fi movie, and a smart movie.
Also, I hate to be mean, but people can and are that horrible to each other. When you think of someone or something as an ‘other’, it is easier to cut off all emotions. Just look at the age of exploration, or the Cursades has two extreme examples.
Still, I liked our review and your idea about the aliens’ frist-contact.

Long time watcher and first time commentator. (Wait, maybe I commented on your joint review of the Warrior comic) I thought it was the second best movie all year. I agree on you with many points however there are some which I would like to rebute.

How come nobody ever made a comparison to the Apartheid era in this movie?

Well, if you had paid attention the alien ship stopped over Johannesburg in 1981. Apartheid officially ended in 1994. So nobody mentioned it as it was already happening, and to people. Who cares that some ugly crustaceans feel when human beings are being mistreated?

I agree with you that the film poorly presented opposing viewpoints. We did see human protesters demonstrating against the treatment of the District 9 residents. But however you ARE naive to believe that they would be living in better conditions or that human beings cannot be that cruel. People simply giving a shit hasn’t stopped the genocide in Darfur that has been going on for six years, or the oppression of the Chechens by the Russian military for generations or mistreatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. Why wouldn’t someone do something to get those PEOPLE out of those places?

There is also a link I can provide you that can explain some of the complexities of the movie. However I am still trying to find it.

I loved the movie, the best sci-fi I’ve seen in a long time, although there’s three things in particular I thought didnt make any sense, I’m surprised they were not mentionned in the review:

The first thing that struck me as odd in the movie, that wasnt explained anytime, is how everyone understands alien and how every alien understands english. I know in all Hollywood movies anyone from any country in the world speaks english, but now that’s over the top. So where did they learn alien? Is there an alien language school?

I guess it can make sense it you take into consideration aliens have been on earth for 20 years, so they may be so advanced they can learn other languages easily, and humans could have had the time to understand and teach that alien language to those working with aliens but… meh. I wish they explained it at least.

Also, how did the main character get into District 9 so easily after he escaped the first time? This should be the most guarded place in the world, there’s even missile turrets nearby, and anyone can just sneak by and crawl under the non-electrified fence? Way to go South Africa.

Third, the robot that can block bullets with it’s electromagnectic shield… what happened to that? As soon as the main character enters the robot, he gets shot down 5 minutes later by machine guns, it,s ridiculous when you think about it.

I enjoyed the way the movie took an unconventional approach to the typical “Aliens are nice, so we’re nice; aliens are hostile, so we fight back” approach where no matter what humanity is always the ‘the good guys’. In District 9, WE are the monsters.

But Spoony’s concept of gradually showing an increasing hatred/distrust to the Prawns over the years would have made it a more thought-provoking movie, and would have made it even deeper by exploring and projecting human apathy and xenophobia. Given that racism and genocides still occur world wide, is it unlikely that such atrocities would not occur towards extraterrestrials after a short time?

District 9 is probably the best movie of the summer, but that’s not saying much. Summer 2009 blows compared to the amazing Summer 2008 lineup we had last year. Just compare ‘Transformers 2′ to ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Dark Knight’ and you’ll realize Hollywood tripped on its own ego this last year.

Anyways, there’s already rumors of the director wanting to ‘revisit’ the world of District 9, and with the praises from critics, there’s no way we won’t be seeing ‘District 9 2 (??)”

i had no real intrest in this flick, looked like it was a halo movie the first time i saw the teaser lol. but after this review it sounds really good. i think i will see it after all. haven’t had a reason to hit the local theatre in awhile. thanks spoony.
and btw. it looks like your really getting settled in at the new pad. awesome! means you can bust your ass making great vids like this and entertaining all the interwebz in that awesome spoony experiment way. rick on spoony, rock on.

i love this movie, omg.. i saw the premier couple weeks ago and we all love it. can’t wait for the next one (i hope)

The whole “documentary” style is commonly used by beginning screenwriters. Film is a visual medium, and one of the first things they teach you nowadays in film school can basically be summarized as “show, don’t tell”. Writers and directors like George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Speilburg were at one time pioneers in essentially “no exposition” movies; whereas movies in the 40′s through the 60′s relied on a lot of talking to provide background and characterization, beginning especially with Lucas films began taking advantage of the visual nature to actually “show” background and characterization rather than talk about it. The thing is, that’s tough to write in a script, or coordinate with a director that hopefully knows what he’s doing. Its “easier” for a screenwriter to simply work in long scenes of exposition (in the case of D9, disguised as “documentary” footage) rather than work out the complexities of visual exposition. Look at for example Children of Men or Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead for two outstanding examples of visual exposition with almost no scenes of the characters talking and explaining the backstory, setting, or characterizations.

As always, it would seem that you and I are of similar opinions, including the desire to see a sci-fi movie that was more than bombs and machines, and one that actually contained a real plot. I think the movies rather apparent transparency about racism was almost required, if you did indeed hope to get a message of the horrors that large scale, and violent, racism can be.

The reference to how District 10 was more like a concentration camp further illustrates the point of how terrible hate can be, especially when people are willing to turn a blind eye. For every two racist people, there’s one indifferent, and one person willing to lend a helping hand. So instead of a pure and clean divide between the two sides, you really have the hateful, the indifferent and the caring. Which I do agree, the movie could have at least alluded to.

The docu-cinema style did not bother me either, even though it did make it hard to suspend my disbelieve. But other movies had done it before, and it was better than being stuck in the ‘handheld camera’ view of Cloverfield. I’m sure certain things were added or taken away from this movie, purely based on a desire to boost ticket sales, and I do not fault the movie makers for such a decision. They are in a business, and a business number one goal is to make money. Do I think the movie could have been more cerebral, and stimulate the audience on an entirely different level than any movie this year; of course I do. Do I blame them for not making such a choice; of course I do not.

That reminds me, was there ever a review for UP?

All movies this summer suck because this year is where the fallout of the WGA strike hits us.

I can understand the whole thing about not liking the apartheid comparisons. I think they’re valid because the aliens arrived in 1990 when apartheid was still fresh in everyone’s minds. And I think it’s trying to convey the fact that while apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States is a distant memory, the attitudes which brought about those abhorrent policies are still around.

Also, the short film “Alive in Joburg” that this was based on was written by South Africans, and I believe that the person who played Wikus was one of the people involved in that film.

As for the Nigerians, there are some in Africa who believe that having sex with a virgin will cure you of AIDS. So, their scientific reasoning is a bit lacking to say the least. I think that’s another message the movie was going for, but I can’t be sure.

As for the people’s attitude toward the aliens, keep in mind that when the film takes place, the aliens have been on Earth for nearly 30 years, so the honeymoon ended quite a while ago.

And I don’t think it’s fair to say that America is turning a blind eye to the horrors in Africa. We are aware of it, but we can’t be World Police and swoop in and just tell them to behave. Geopolitics is rather complicated.

Is that a Razer Deathadder on your desk? (Best mouse ever)

Quite honestly i have to agree with you, the message can feel forced at times. And from the very beginning I didn’t understand the whole amount of racism in the film towards the aliens. The movie is more of a damaging and inaccurate take on racism in the world. Of course their would be alien relief groups and all that, some people are just compelled to help others no matter what.

The before mentioned Alien Nation film and series really conveys this much better. There is alot of racism towards the aliens, but at the same time there are a bunch of supporters and friends. If you haven’t seen it, see it. Along with the also great Enemy Mine which also sort of deals with the issue of alien racism. Also see V because it’s awesome, kinda A message of don’t be too trusting to a friendly bunch of seemingly innocent aliens. Because they might have reptilian scales under their human disguises, If that makes any sense. Just see it, message or not.

But back to District 9, A movie is never fun if the message is too forced. Alien Nation had a message but in most senses it was just a Buddy Cop film and thats basically how the movie was built.

First off I would like to say I loved this movie and Spoony, you have valid points. I’ve thought about your issue with not enough Pro-Alien people in the movie. When I put myself in the shoes of a person living during this time I don’t think I would be so quick to help the aliens either. Basically the aliens got a foot on an average human, have superior technology/weaponry, and literally have the strength to rip your head or arm from your torso. There’s also a language barrier and it seems that the aliens can be short-tempered and don’t view the humans as being very trustworthy.

Really the symbolism wasn’t just about how we treat each other but how we could treat visitors from another world. I agree about the alien supporters not getting enough screen time…I was like ‘Where is MNU spreads lies!?’ :( I was waiting for a human/alien group to come up and start getting them out of there but oh well. It was still a great movie and I enjoyed it.

just my 2 cents i havent seen the movie but ive put thought into extraterrestials visiting earth the reason why they would probably be quarantined is because of their bodies may have on them bacteria that could be lethal cause our immune system has never handled anything even similar so it would make most people extremly sick

Johannesburg is actually the most crime-filled city on Earth, and Nigerian gangs do have a presence in the city.

I think the switching between documentary and actual film shows exactly where the “official” story ends and actual occurrences begin.

I personally can’t wait for the extended cut of this film. Hopefully it will round out some of the edges of the universe and peoples’ ideas on the Prawns.

Also, I think the premise is less metaphor and more allegory. Allegories are easily some of the least subtle things made. Animal Farm, for instance, bashes you over the head and almost outright tells you “I HATE SOVIETS!”.

Am I the only one who noticed the “Gravity Gun” moment during the Mecha part :P?

geo political issues aside, I liked the movie. I did feel that the splatter the camera was over done it should have only happened twice when the first guy gets hit by lightning and when the warlord dies. Did any one else fell that our guy sort of failed as a competent mech pilot? he saw that the mech had a gravidly reminiscent of half-life 2 and failed to use it as a shield like the mech did on auto pilot. I will grant that he did use it to throw a full sized pig in to a solder at 80mph and that was funny. it also seemed that the mech and some great mic pick ups and he should have had it set for the distinct sound of a bolt action rifle. those mnu guys were well armed why did they just have an antimalarial rifle and rpg if all they are deling with most of the time are unarmored prawns and if it’s because they have mech then you would think they would have more specialized stuff to deal with them have had face them before.

I havent’ seen it yet, hopefully this week or next weekend, but yeah from what I’ve heard about the movies plot and where it takes place I was like ‘uh yeah, symbolism seems pretty obvious.’ I think this could have been averted by setting it in a different place, but they again the fact it is set in South Africa is 100x more interesting then setting it in LA or New York where you know Michael Bay would have set it. South Africa isn’t a place that is usually explored in blockbuster cinema and would probably go along towards giving this film its own distinct look.

Nice review, and it’s nice to see someone explain their problems with a film without acting like a snob. However I do have a problem with one of your points.

In the beginning of your review you said that you had a problem with the story taking place in South Africa simply because the Nigerians should have been able to recognize that what was happening to the Prawns was same thing that happened to them during the apartheid. However I think you need to realize the context of what’s going on. I remember a comment one of the Nigerians said during the film. It went something like, “I wouldn’t mind it if they were human but since they’re not they have to go and I believe that many of these people have this same mentality. That because they look nothing like them, then they don’t have to care about them. It doesn’t matter if their situation is similar to the apartheid.

God lord, these vLogs are boring.

Hey, let’s watch spoony ramble for 20 minutes!

But it did serve a purpose. It made me take a good nap. Thanks, spoony.

I’m a fan of Spoony’s rants and his vlogs…I say we need more. I like the off the cuff stuff as much as the scripted reviews. Though I have to say, it’s much more entertaining when he HATES a movie (Indy 4 is my fav review of his, and TF 2 with his bro was great) but I definitely enjoy this too. Keep it up, Spoony! I’ve been a fan for a while and it’s good to see new posts!

Miss the geeky bedroom you used to have in the old place, though…

I have a friend who actually moved here from South Africa with his family, and he’s not yet a legal citizen. He explained the whole Apartheid concept to me as being the polar opposite of the race relations we have experienced in this country. He said due to the fact that the africans heavily outnumber the caucasians that the white people were the minority and were the ones looked down upon. He said his grandfather owned a farm, and his farm was constantly being raided by black vigilantes, and the local government kept trying to find a way to emancipate his property. I don’t know if that helps? But it is the best I can do.

Human’s are not inherently good. Our history is full of horrors and injustice committed just counting American’s history alone. Genocide of the Native American’s, slavery of African Americans, corruption against immigrants, unfair treatment of “the china man” ( include but not limiting to Chinese men not being able to wed nor bring their wife to America).

OH! I want to bring to attention the not so spoken about “The raping of Nanking” During WWII where the Japanese went into a Chinese town and terrorize( to say the least) that town to the point where a Nazi Diplomat who witness the “crime” asked Hitler to ask Japan to stop their terror. Human beings are weak and easily corrupted when power are given to them. There are always people who won’t do these heinous crimes, but there are always those who has very little inhibition.

Given the context of the writers’ origins, it almost had to be set in Jo’berg. You write about what you know. The film was indeed meant to be a sledgehammer commentary on the ethnic and racial divides in the world, and that seem to be centering around the African continent right now. Your comment on that makes sense, but as you said, “I know, I’m going to get ‘ well that was the point.’.” Basically, yep. I also think the heavy handedness of the RSA government and the actions of the Nigerians in this were equally supposed to be almost a mockery of how the rest of the world sees them as well, it was an exaggerated response on purpose. They were almost “too xenophobic and evil to be real”, I think that was intentional. We see it that for what it is (as Westerners). and go, “Oh yeah, not all people from there could be like that at all.”, as opposed to what we are bombarded with on the evening news.

Given the context of the writers’ origins, it almost had to be set in Jo’berg. You write about what you know. The film was indeed meant to be a sledgehammer commentary on the ethnic and racial divides in the world, and that seem to be centering around the African continent right now. Your comment on that makes sense, but as you said, “I know, I’m going to get ‘ well that was the point.’.” Basically, yep. I also think the heavy handedness of the RSA government and the actions of the Nigerians in this were equally supposed to be almost a mockery of how the rest of the world sees them as well, it was an exaggerated response on purpose. They were almost “too xenophobic and evil to be real”, I think that was intentional. We see it that for what it is (as Westerners). and go, “Oh yeah, not all people from there could be like that at all.”, as opposed to what we are bombarded with on the evening news.

For a movie that does the pseudo-documentary style insanely well, even though it’s not a documentary (more that you’re there as some kind of impartial observer), Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men is an incredible movie. If you haven’t seen it, you’re doing yourself a disservice :)

I think the word you were looking for was “developed” or “industrialized.”

Also, people will NEVER get over racism, no matter how much time passes. You give society too much credit, Spoony.

@ #100: No one put a gun to your head and forced you to watch.
>.> <.< Did they? O.o

Dear Mr. Spoony
I’m very glad that you enjoyed the movie and at the same time I’m happy that you gave it a good review. I agree that there is somethings wrong with the movie, but I think you don’t see exactly what they were trying to do. This movie is trying to show all of the wrong and hateful acts that “mankind” can and probably will do to anyone or anything that appears different. In this case the aliens. However I do agree that the movie’s problems started with the camera views. I also think that the they made the mistake in viewing all levels of racial hate into one movie.

Keep doing what your doing if you like. Your good at it and the best part is that your making people smile and saving lives.

Your Fan: Dav

Perhaps the rasicsm point is more modern than you think. In South Africa the government has the incredibly unpopular “Positive Rasiscm” where employment options and education as well as housing are restricted (or at least limited) to ‘white’ people.
Not dissimilar to the early progressive laws after Segregation was abolished in the U.S.

@106: No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it either.

Well, for starters, weren’t both the Government and the Nigerians scum towards the aliens in their own right?

I saw a video where in Nigeria, a group of children in a small village were holding onto a human heart and began bragging as to who was going to eat it first. It turns out they had just murdered a military officer, and whoever ate the heart would obtain the soul of whom it belonged to. There’s also mountains worth of cases where villages would burn alive those who were assumed to be conducting witchcraft. There’s alot of uncontrolled and inhumane corruption in such parts of the world that something such as the Niergian Gang wanting the Alien arm to gain its power isn’t all too much of a stretch.

As for the MNU and their experiments… I think that can go without saying that they’re about as hell bent, maybe even frighteningly worse than the Nigerian Gangs, in taking control by aquiring the weapons and DNA of the Prawns. Power. There isn’t all that much of a difference. The Prawns are either eaten by the black folk, or their stufffed in a concentration camp by the white folk. See, now all the ethnicities are pricks; fair trade.

I mean, the Aliens were shit-out-of-luck stopping at the “Holiday Inn” that is South Africa. Taking in consideration of the length of Apartheid (1948 – 1994), should it really be a surprise that something as extreme as a completely new species that isn’t from Earth living with those who’d both been under and abiding the Apartheid rule treat this new majority as a minority for a shorter amount of time? Also, the Prawns have been around for just over 20 years, one would think that this is most likely an alternate timeline (though I’m not sure of the dates).

I’ll have to see District 9 again.

Well, for starters, weren’t both the Government and the Nigerians scum towards the aliens in their own right?

I saw a video where in Nigeria, a group of children in a small village were holding onto a human heart and began bragging as to who was going to eat it first. It turns out they had just murdered a military officer, and whoever ate the heart would obtain the soul of whom it belonged to. There’s also mountains worth of cases where villages would burn alive those who were assumed to be conducting witchcraft. There’s alot of uncontrolled and inhumane corruption in such parts of the world that something such as the Niergian Gang wanting the Alien arm to gain its power isn’t all too much of a stretch.

As for the MNU and their experiments… I think that can go without saying that they’re about as hell bent, maybe even frighteningly worse than the Nigerian Gangs, in taking control by aquiring the weapons and DNA of the Prawns. Power. There isn’t all that much of a difference. The Prawns are either eaten by the black folk, or their stufffed in a concentration camp by the white folk. See, now all the ethnicities are pricks; fair trade.

I mean, the Aliens were shit-out-of-luck stopping at the “Holiday Inn” that is South Africa. Taking in consideration of the length of Apartheid (1948 – 1994), should it really be a surprise that something as extreme as a completely new species that isn’t from Earth living with those who’d both been under and abiding the Apartheid rule treat this new majority as a minority for a shorter amount of time? Also, the Prawns have been around for just over 20 years, one would think that this is most likely an alternate timeline (though I’m not sure of the dates).

I’ll have to see District 9 again.

Since you said there were no good movies over the summer I would like to inform you of a
Swedish film that might have flown under the radar in the US but was pretty big in Scandinavia.
It is called Men Who Hate Women and in case you see it Id like to know what you thought of it.

It said why humans treated the Prauns so badly in the film.

“something they saw as recreational such as starting a fire or breaking a window” or “they have no concept of ownership” which was added to by a civilian saying “they’ll take anything you have, cel phone…” so it was shown that the Prauns had done more than just not be human to earn the ire of the Human population.

”

Human’s are not inherently good. Our history is full of horrors and injustice committed just counting American’s history alone. Genocide of the Native American’s, slavery of African Americans, corruption against immigrants, unfair treatment of “the china man” ( include but not limiting to Chinese men not being able to wed nor bring their wife to America). ”

Yeah, but I think spoony’s point was humans aren’t inherently evil either. During each of those horrors, there were those who were opposed to it (eg, the abolition movement; people like Admiral Wilhelm Canaris) who put themselves at great personal risk to do the right thing. The problem I think many had with the film was that it underrepresented that aspect of humanity.

Spoony, you should watch the original movie on spyfilms.com by the same director, I think your questions could be explained from there. I believe it was called ‘Alive in Joburg’.
It’s basically just a mockumentary detailing the arrival of the aliens and what not.

Hey there

first time commenter but as a South African I feel I should put in my two cents. I really enjoyed your review, it was a bit more measured than most. I really enjoyed District 9, and although I agree with most of your criticisms, I think its important to that people realize that although the Apartheid system was officially dismantled, racism is still prevalent in South Africa. Forty years of institutionalized racism does not simply disappear overnight and it will take South Africa a long time to recover from the effect of Apartheid. You probably receive little or any news from South Africa but racially motivated hate crimes are common Furthermore xenophobic violence is common place in areas like the townships depicted in the film. In fact in 2008 large scale riots resulted in the deaths of 63 legal immigrants. After shuffling there feet for a few days the government intervened and moved many immigrants into refugee camps similar the those seen in District 9. This is one of many examples, Wikipedia or any South African news service is full of information like this. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t believe that Blomkamp should be criticized for showing racial politics in South Africa in a negative light. In reality he was simple providing a brutally honest depiction.

enjoyed the review though!

How was this movie portraying Nigerians negatively? They were bad guys in the movie that happened to be Nigerian, it doesn’t reflect the moral fiber of the country–and I think the South African-born writer understands that better and is comfortable with it. This is like saying that Mexicans are portrayed badly in Man on Fire, but in both cases I think it’s clear that we see unusually evil men who do not represent their nationality.

Also, I think that if a full documentary had been attempted for District 9, people would’ve called it a simple Cloverfield successor. I also felt the movie seamlessly went between documentary style and non-documentary style. The idea is that the interviewees in the documentary know as much as you do and provide the context, but you, the audience, get the rare first-hand look at what is happening.

I think your critiques are a little nitpicky and inconsequential (but they often are when we go to movies with expectations, I’m glad I went in to this one for once without a clue as to what was going to happen), but I’ll keep watching. ; D

Man, I really loved Land of the Lost. I thought it was a great translation of the TV Show that embraced it’s silliness while still respecting it.

Anyway, I loved District 9. I can’t say I was consciously thinking about the apartheid references because I was too ingrained in the stories of the Prawns and Wikus. I do think a lot of people do know about Apartheid, but (whether you see this as sad or not) I don’t think most Americans are going to really make the connection. It’s going to end up being a fun, thoughtful movie about how Humanity might treat Aliens to most, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

My only real problem is that I don’t think enough time was spent on either of the movies major “villains”, by which I mean the Father of Wikus’s wife and the leader of the MNU unit. Both dropped into the story whenever necessary and neither was really given enough characterization to really stand out. There is nothing wrong with a faceless organization being used to represent humanity’s ills, but there is something wrong with it when you try not to have that, but don’t try hard enough.

Aside from that gripe, I thought the aliens were very believable (I cringed whenever any of them were hurt or killed), Wikus was a pretty good representative of the “walk a mile in their shoes” character, and Christopher is just as relateable and endearing as any good human character (which is impressive for CGI in a live-action film (don’t want to forget Pixar’s efforts).

Plus, the action was all kinds of badass. Who else loved the “buddy cop” moments that Wikus and Christopher had near the end of the movie?

I can’t believe that one movie would so thoroughly own basically every other movie this summer (minus Up and Land of the Lost), but District 9 is that movie. Solid B (ehh, maybe A-).

Screw you Spoony, I want to watch this but the damn movie isn’t out in the UK until September >:(

Ah, Spoony Vlog. So nice and calming after a long day of yard work.
Any who~! I agree 100% that it should have stuck with the documentary style of the original independent short film that this was based around. (Which I began lamenting when I saw the first TV spot for the movie.) The evidence of “protagonists and antagonists” were evident everywhere in that, and I felt that the film was weakened for it.

Granted, I think it would have lost a lot of its audience keeping the documentary style, but I’m a nut for that type of movie. Last Broadcast, Pughipsi Tapes. Though different in genre were all really effective because you felt that what was happening was happening in ‘your’ world and not someone else’s. Granted, this couldn’t feel quite like that, but I think it would have been a better tool to draw us into the movies world. Like you said, showing before and after reactions would have been much better than just “here are some aliens and we are racist towards them because”.

Not to say that I think it was bad, I just feel that the shift in style from Documentary to Action Film was more or less to garner a main stream audience.
Either way, it got me into a movie theater and that is a feat unto itself.

Hi Spoony,
I enjoyed your review of District 9. Although, I disagree with it being a good movie, your insight into the subtle message was good though. I didn’t see it that way until you stated that it can be taken as a race issue. However, I felt it was mostly conditioning the audience into accepting an alien race co-habitation when there’s evidence that indicates aliens mutilating and probing humans. It reminded me a little like E.T. and The Fly. Pretty much, it has been done.

The interrogation scene that you said was missing from the movie is not actually missing, it’s in the movie but it is so brief that you could have yawned or even blinked and missed it. All it is is the interrogator asking how the alien weapons work and the alien responds “Please, we just want to go home”. That it’s, next scene.

Still, it was a tiny bit of a rip off that they actually put the whole (very short) interrogation scene in the trailer to make you think it was, y’know, an actual interrogation, not just two sentences.

i had some problems also but nothing with HOW the movie was made. POSSIBLE SPOILERS DEPENDS ON HOW PICKY YOU ARE!!!

1) Wouldn’t the ship be half destroyed if if entered our atmosphere (considering it was disabled) yet it looks perfect…

2) when interviewed (in the trailer) couldn’t the aliens tell the humans what they needed to get their ship working… I mean if the humans made every piece of technology illegal how do you expect the aliens to ever get home. Seems to me that the humans wanted them to stay for some reason.

3) how did the mother ship start working as soon as the smaller one hooked on. From what i understood, the small ship needed the “juice”. And even after such said events, the mother ship was randomly turned on… Was the smaller ship like the missing piece of a battery. Why couldn’t they have turned it on earlier… am i missing something… It seems like they try and trick you into forgetting that the big ship is STILL disables when he smaller one starts working.

4) How is the ship hovering if it is disabled….? I know they come from another planet but no where in the movie did they state that the aliens had “hovering technology”

I don’t think I’m being to hard on this movie considering i loved it. It did make me feel like i should hate humanity more then i already do, because of how mean we were in the movie, but over all for story and plot progress… A++
I’m hoping to hear what you guys think of what i had to say…

AMY ANGEL SERIES – GOOGLE IT!

Spoony, the issues with the aliens being mistreated so badly and the inconsistency of the faux-documentary format bothered me too, but I think that the problem here is that you and the director would have made this movie with different objectives in mind. While you, and I as well, would rather have made a film focused more on the first contact and development of the alien-human relations, his objective was to make an allegorical work about apartheid, with (apparently) little concern for its subtlety. In other words, his movie is really about the people, not the aliens.

The big thing that I thought the movie would do, but didn’t, was show the main character attempting to integrate himself into the alien society, because he was rejected by the humans, and develop a trust and understanding of the aliens as the story progressed. While I still liked the movie, I didn’t think that it would take the direction it did.

The only one I agree with you is that I would have liked to see more of the alien supporters. Some of the viral stuff dealt with it, and it was almost missing in the movie. Everything else you mentioned I think you should overlook. That stuff about the hitting your head over the head with a brick of metaphore doesn’t take away from the movie. You should overlook that stuff like I have to overlook the many plotholes that any sci-fi film has. For example, who does alien fuel turn you into one of them seamlessly? If we sprayed them with gas, does that make them human?

My only real complaint is that I found the main guy kinda annoying. I felt the only two things he did was make matters go from bad to worse, and dropping the F bomb in rapid succession.

I would have liked an actual rating too. Mine’s 4.5/5.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, this summer was a disappointment? What about Star Trek?

I have a degree in african studies and as far as I know about Nigeria, it has emperialist views and wants to conquer it’s neighbors. The problem is, that they use the rebels in other countries to murder women children and harass other militaries. Nigeria is after control of diamond trades in neighboring countries and does so very violently. The real cause of the wars there isn’t racism, it’s greed and nationalism.

Just from the previews, you could tell it was going to be a “brute force” approach on racism. Aliens (a minority already) were segregated and not allowed to be anywhere near other human beings. Even more, they reveal it takes place in Africa. It only takes two neurons to put it together that it’s about Racism in Africa and that’s basically the message of the entire movie.

Still, even if it’s a movie about racism… I still want to line up and see the spectacle of a SCIENCE FICTION movie. We have so few of those. So few TRUE SCIENCE FICTION movies. Most of them are stupid comedy knock-offs like Transformers, or are really badly written like the AvP franchise.

I watch your review and the movie last night and I agree with your review up to the part where you said that the documentary didn’t show the “falling out of love with the aliens.” Half of the documentary part did tell that story. The moment where the human start falling out of love with the aliens is when they started calling the aliens prawns. I think the quote that hit most home was when one of the white guys said “Well they kind of look like prawns don’t they.” Most of the people interviewed were being very subtle about they’re distaste for “prawns” because they were on camera, but distaste was there. After that the documentary shows clip of “ordinary people” talking about their hatred of prawns to drive home the sledgehammer.

One of the major problem the humans had with the aliens was the alien’s dark sense of humor. The aliens would do things like derailing trains and find it funny. Add that to the fact that the aliens speak a different language and to the fact that they are ugly and you have a humanitarian shit storm.

As for human not being very nice, called me a pessimist, but I wouldn’t put such atrocity past any country. I don’t know why I think that, maybe it’s because I’m black. However once the alien population was separated from the rest of humanity, this movie set the stage up for racial bigotry.

As for the Nigerians, I agree with diggerjohn111. Very often the Western media does put Africa in that “vodoo” light and the documentary did do a good job of portraying that.

Documentary aspect:
It was a good idea, but the problem is that there was no clear division between the documentary aspect and the movie aspect, and the movie aspect was still being filmed as a documentary; like if there was still a camera man and stuff. By far my biggest complaint

Alien “love”:
No problem, the whole thing happens 20 years after the aliens arrive, so you just have to imagine them losing their “love”. although I admit they could’ve shown some footage of it.

Symbolism:
I didn’t really see a problem. The aliens are almost like giant intelligent insect, and humans will use what they know to have some control over them. History repeats itself, so it’s not unlikely that something like that would happen. I found it had enough stuff going on to set it apart.

Thing I didn’t like:
-Could have been more epic, spanning a longer period than just basing the story on one guy.
-Main actor didn’t seem to fully fit the his character. But it was different and interesting.
-Action filmed roughly, as if it was still a documentary

Things I liked:
-Aliens well made and animated.
-Great Action and Cool weapon effects
-Unmerciful and having impact

Overall, a great film, original, interesting and entertaining, with great attention to detail. With a few signigicant flaws that keep it from being super awesome.

The message was drilled in pretty hard, but I thought it was ok, because the average movie goer isn’t going to be looking at a movie as in depth as you were, Spoony, so it needed to be VERY easy to pick up on, and same goes for the action scenes; without those, normal movie goers wouldn’t have been interested in the film, and it would have failed financially, even if it was better from an artistic standpoint. I’m not sure about the South African and Nigerian people, but I doubt there was much research put into there culture and general community life styles, but hey, this movie inspired more thoughts than Transformers, so it wins in my book. By the way, will you be doing a VLOG for G.I. Joe? I thought it was pretty good, as far as movies about ’80s cartoons go.

The message was drilled in pretty hard, but I thought it was ok, because the average movie goer isn’t going to be looking at a movie as in depth as you were, Spoony, so it needed to be VERY easy to pick up on, and same goes for the action scenes; without those, normal movie goers wouldn’t have been interested in the film, and it would have failed financially, even if it was better from an artistic standpoint. I’m not sure about the South African and Nigerian people, but I doubt there was much research put into there culture and general community life styles, but hey, this movie inspired more thoughts than Transformers, so it wins in my book. By the way, will you be doing a VLOG for G.I. Joe? I thought it was pretty good, as far as movies about ’80s cartoons go.

All I’m going to say about the humans’ cruelty on the prawns is that if in real life there were these aliens that have lived here for twenty years, have had a lot funding from the goverment that could’ve been spent on something more important, been robbing humans and sometimes even killing them, chances are that I wouldn’t take kind to them that well. Also, I guess it could cause some psychological problems as well if it has been going on long enough (which it did).

Overall, most entertaining movie I’ve seen all year. Saying I liked it would be a pretty big understatement.

I do agree about how mean the south africans were to the aliens. I mean, where’s the UN involvement? Why wasn’t there any mention of what the other nations of the world have to say about this? I mean, I get it that South Africa is a nation that can run itself, but come on. You know the US would JUMP and invade South Africa to get their hands on the aliens.

I was half expecting one of those cliche adopt a child commercials or 10 cents a day can feed this alien commercial, but we didn’t get that. But the biggest thing stuck to my head wasn’t even the brutality of humanity, it was the mention of sex with the aliens. I’m GLAD! So Glad we didn’t get to see anything remotely sexual with the aliens, but the fact that they just shoveled that into the plot just horrified me. I mean, they look like 2 legged bugs. These aren’t hot aliens with green tits, these are nothing like our species. The idea that we can have sex with them is just…nasty.

But I just don’t believe we can be that cruel to aliens without them having counter attacking us. I mean, there’s a scene were the humans essentially burned a maternity ward full of eggs of their aliens and the humans are laughing about it like they are pests…It just seems…wrong too wrong that humanity is portrayed as these cliche guys that want to rip these aliens apart to study them. You think after 20 years of these aliens on Earth, there would be some kind of bridge in the gap or is the movie saying that this is what happens to aliens if they landed in Africa, giving Africa, South Africa a bad name that they are butchers on alien races that have guns that can kick our asses 10 times over.

Well, here’s my 2 cents on South Africa, for whatever it’s worth (probably quite literally 2 cents).

In my oh-so-humble opinion, things have only gotten worse for the nation ever since the end of the Apartheid. Crime exploded out of control and there has been a considerable amount of brutality to the farmers which continues to this day. Do a news search on white South African farmers, and you’ll hear stories of roving gangs and mobs coming to their property to kill them and take it for themselves. It’s gotten so bad that many farming towns and communities have had to pool their resources together and stockpile weapons and arms and take shifts on watch-duty to keep the mobs at bay. The government, is, ofcourse, turning a blind eye. This problem began shortly after the end of the Apartheid, in which black rebels and mobs would take farms for themselves, which, as you can guess, they didn’t do jack with them. The land became poor from lack of upkeep, which only resulted in crop shortages and increased prices on vegetation.

The problem with South Africa was that neither of the two races wanted to blend, neither cared about the other. Violence simply shifted from one side to the other after the end of the Apartheid. I wish everyone could get along, but one cold hard fact remains: You CANNOT force integration anymore than you can force seperation. That is a process that takes a long time and slowly integrades, you can’t push people who do not like eachother to be in the same place if neither of them want to, it only leads to conflict. They will get along only when they are good and ready, it’s a process, not a lawful order.

As for the Nigerians, I’m less educated about Nigeria (other than their royalty keeps sending me emails asking for money), but I do have to point out that the Nigerians in this movie ARE infact criminals. Nigeria and South Africa are on opposite sides of the continent, and therefore do not readily intermingle with South Africa as much as border nations do. The movie made it clear that these are a criminal syndicate who came down here for the sole purpose of creating a blackmarket with the aliens. Criminals will, infact, act like criminals, and I don’t have any real complaints with the movie on simply stating that simple fact.

As for the canabalism and witcdoctor stuff, I honestly cannot tell you on how much of it lies in Nigeria or South Africa. I do know that much of the continent is still plagued with superstition. I do remember hearing a few cases of this still going on in it’s border nation of Botswana, and it DID involve a crime lord, but as to how much of that goes on in South Africa, I cannot say. However, most of the research I’ve done (I have been looking up African mythology for a screenplay I write in my spare time) points to Western Africa and Eastern African nations like Tanzania as still having a good source of this witchdoctor shit going on. The spread of AIDS throughout the continent is largely perpetuated by a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure them of their disease, which has lead to a devestating spread of rape and pedophilia. Witchdoctors also sell bullshit cures for AIDS. However, Tanzania has a peculiar black market for albino body parts. There is a myth in Tanzania, usually in fishing communties, that albinos possess magical properties, and to this day are still killed and dismembered to harvest their parts to be sold to witchdoctors. The skin, eyes, organs, and genitals are used to as ingrediants in potions, and their hair is intwined in to fishing nets in the hopes of catching more fish, or even fish with gold in their stomachs. Luckily, the current leader and official government policy of Tanzania finds this practice barbaric and evil, but even cops have been known buy these things from witch doctors so there is still a great deal of corruption.

Believe me when I tell you this shit exists. It’s common place today for people to think of our ancestors “civilizing” Africans as high-minded and judgemental, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. With all the ignorance, violence, superstition, and war that has plagued so much of the continent for thousands of years, teaching them to behave otherwise sounds like a pretty damn good idea. Remember, the reasons people may hate other people are not based on pure bullshit, there are logical reasons people come to the assumptions they do. They may be largely ignorant or exagerate it, but they are never 100% untrue.

Now as for the movie itself:

I enjoyed it, but unlike Spoony I wasn’t highly anticipating it. It just seemed worth seeing and popped up on my radar. It was a well-executed film, but I’m still not entirely sure on how much I actually liked it. I had a similar feeling after I was watching Watchmen, in that the movie was good, but I’m not so sure I would consider it great. If nothing else, it was different, which was a welcome change from the rest of the summer failures that have plagued the silver screen so far.

As far as the theme, I agree that I do not want violence against the aliens. However, at the same time the movie makes itself very clear that neither of the two species want anything to do with one another, and are only hear because they have no other choice. You can’t exactly blame the people of Earth for not wanting the aliens around. They have enough problems as it is, and then out of the blue 1.8 million unwanted and uninvited aliens decend over the city, and now we’re stuck with them. At the same time, the aliens themselves clearly don’t want anything to do with humanity and they would take off and never come back if their ship worked, so now they are stuck here in a place they don’t want to be in either, and the animosity just grows. This goes back to my previous statement on how you cannot force two groups to be together if neither of them want to.

However, I have two complaints about this movie. The first is when the main character is going to be chopped up for experimentation, and his father-in-law has absolutely NO quarrels or ethical dillema with this. I mean, we knew from earlier that he never really liked his son-in-law, but to be completely unmoved at the the thought of him being killed and disected just seemed ubelievable. Especially considering he knows how much his daughter loves him, and even more so when he’s RIGHT THERE BEGGING FOR HELP! I’m sorry, I just didn’t buy this scene at all. I mean, I could maybe buy it if he regretably agreed to do so for all the technology and medicine that would benefit the world at the cost of one life, but instead he is unmoved and doesn’t have the slightest confliction over this, nor does he need to be pushed or persuaded into agreeing, he just does so without a second thought.

The second was near the end, SPOILER ALERT! At the end of the movie, the alien and his son manage to get aboard the mothership, get it working again, and take off into space completely alone, promising he will return to save his people and help the main character in 3 years. I know it’s not made clear, but from what I saw, the mothership looks completely abandoned, has no air traffic or research teams around it, and it truly looks like the alien and his son are the only two lifeforms aboard. I find it very hard to believe that this technological wonder suspended over the city is just lying there empty, unexplored, and unstudied. I mean, yeah you can argue that after 20 years of being unable to get any of the technology to work that interest has died down and people have largely given up. But c’mon, I KNOW that even after 2 decades it’s still a technological gold mine with untold possibilities. Not only that, but it’s large enough to house 1.8 million people, I’m pretty sure you could have people live up there for years to continue their research. Granted, I’m also willing to buy the idea that they are going to be very cautious and not risk damaging anything less the giant ship comes crashing down on the city below. But c’mon, there are a lot of curious people who’d be all too happy to start exploring that thing.

Well, that’s my 2 cents.

Well, here’s my 2 cents on South Africa, for whatever it’s worth (probably quite literally 2 cents).

In my oh-so-humble opinion, things have only gotten worse for the nation ever since the end of the Apartheid. Crime exploded out of control and there has been a considerable amount of brutality to the farmers which continues to this day. Do a news search on white South African farmers, and you’ll hear stories of roving gangs and mobs coming to their property to kill them and take it for themselves. It’s gotten so bad that many farming towns and communities have had to pool their resources together and stockpile weapons and arms and take shifts on watch-duty to keep the mobs at bay. The government, is, ofcourse, turning a blind eye. This problem began shortly after the end of the Apartheid, in which black rebels and mobs would take farms for themselves, which, as you can guess, they didn’t do jack with them. The land became poor from lack of upkeep, which only resulted in crop shortages and increased prices on vegetation.

The problem with South Africa was that neither of the two races wanted to blend, neither cared about the other. Violence simply shifted from one side to the other after the end of the Apartheid. I wish everyone could get along, but one cold hard fact remains: You CANNOT force integration anymore than you can force seperation. That is a process that takes a long time and slowly integrades, you can’t push people who do not like eachother to be in the same place if neither of them want to, it only leads to conflict. They will get along only when they are good and ready, it’s a process, not a lawful order.

As for the Nigerians, I’m less educated about Nigeria (other than their royalty keeps sending me emails asking for money), but I do have to point out that the Nigerians in this movie ARE infact criminals. Nigeria and South Africa are on opposite sides of the continent, and therefore do not readily intermingle with South Africa as much as border nations do. The movie made it clear that these are a criminal syndicate who came down here for the sole purpose of creating a blackmarket with the aliens. Criminals will, infact, act like criminals, and I don’t have any real complaints with the movie on simply stating that simple fact.

As for the canabalism and witcdoctor stuff, I honestly cannot tell you on how much of it lies in Nigeria or South Africa. I do know that much of the continent is still plagued with superstition. I do remember hearing a few cases of this still going on in it’s border nation of Botswana, and it DID involve a crime lord, but as to how much of that goes on in South Africa, I cannot say. However, most of the research I’ve done (I have been looking up African mythology for a screenplay I write in my spare time) points to Western Africa and Eastern African nations like Tanzania as still having a good source of this witchdoctor shit going on. The spread of AIDS throughout the continent is largely perpetuated by a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure them of their disease, which has lead to a devestating spread of rape and pedophilia. Witchdoctors also sell bullshit cures for AIDS. However, Tanzania has a peculiar black market for albino body parts. There is a myth in Tanzania, usually in fishing communties, that albinos possess magical properties, and to this day are still killed and dismembered to harvest their parts to be sold to witchdoctors. The skin, eyes, organs, and genitals are used to as ingrediants in potions, and their hair is intwined in to fishing nets in the hopes of catching more fish, or even fish with gold in their stomachs. Luckily, the current leader and official government policy of Tanzania finds this practice barbaric and evil, but even cops have been known buy these things from witch doctors so there is still a great deal of corruption.

Believe me when I tell you this shit exists. It’s common place today for people to think of our ancestors “civilizing” Africans as high-minded and judgemental, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. With all the ignorance, violence, superstition, and war that has plagued so much of the continent for thousands of years, teaching them to behave otherwise sounds like a pretty damn good idea. Remember, the reasons people may hate other people are not based on pure bullshit, there are logical reasons people come to the assumptions they do. They may be largely ignorant or exagerate it, but they are never 100% untrue.

Now as for the movie itself:

I enjoyed it, but unlike Spoony I wasn’t highly anticipating it. It just seemed worth seeing and popped up on my radar. It was a well-executed film, but I’m still not entirely sure on how much I actually liked it. I had a similar feeling after I was watching Watchmen, in that the movie was good, but I’m not so sure I would consider it great. If nothing else, it was different, which was a welcome change from the rest of the summer failures that have plagued the silver screen so far.

As far as the theme, I agree that I do not want violence against the aliens. However, at the same time the movie makes itself very clear that neither of the two species want anything to do with one another, and are only hear because they have no other choice. You can’t exactly blame the people of Earth for not wanting the aliens around. They have enough problems as it is, and then out of the blue 1.8 million unwanted and uninvited aliens decend over the city, and now we’re stuck with them. At the same time, the aliens themselves clearly don’t want anything to do with humanity and they would take off and never come back if their ship worked, so now they are stuck here in a place they don’t want to be in either, and the animosity just grows. This goes back to my previous statement on how you cannot force two groups to be together if neither of them want to.

However, I have two complaints about this movie. The first is when the main character is going to be chopped up for experimentation, and his father-in-law has absolutely NO quarrels or ethical dillema with this. I mean, we knew from earlier that he never really liked his son-in-law, but to be completely unmoved at the the thought of him being killed and disected just seemed ubelievable. Especially considering he knows how much his daughter loves him, and even more so when he’s RIGHT THERE BEGGING FOR HELP! I’m sorry, I just didn’t buy this scene at all. I mean, I could maybe buy it if he regretably agreed to do so for all the technology and medicine that would benefit the world at the cost of one life, but instead he is unmoved and doesn’t have the slightest confliction over this, nor does he need to be pushed or persuaded into agreeing, he just does so without a second thought.

The second was near the end, SPOILER ALERT! At the end of the movie, the alien and his son manage to get aboard the mothership, get it working again, and take off into space completely alone, promising he will return to save his people and help the main character in 3 years. I know it’s not made clear, but from what I saw, the mothership looks completely abandoned, has no air traffic or research teams around it, and it truly looks like the alien and his son are the only two lifeforms aboard. I find it very hard to believe that this technological wonder suspended over the city is just lying there empty, unexplored, and unstudied. I mean, yeah you can argue that after 20 years of being unable to get any of the technology to work that interest has died down and people have largely given up. But c’mon, I KNOW that even after 2 decades it’s still a technological gold mine with untold possibilities. Not only that, but it’s large enough to house 1.8 million people, I’m pretty sure you could have people live up there for years to continue their research. Granted, I’m also willing to buy the idea that they are going to be very cautious and not risk damaging anything less the giant ship comes crashing down on the city below. But c’mon, there are a lot of curious people who’d be all too happy to start exploring that thing.

Well, that’s my 2 cents.

I agree with spoony with just about everything the documentary to film swapping was a bit disorientating and some scenes were taken out but it was still a good movie anyway hoping for a sequel.

i thought the movie was trying to talk about how people who are prejudice against something even though they were just in the same situation themselves. for example: in california a lot of african americans voted against gay marriage on prop 8. i think people are just blind to these sorts of things. history will be repeated over and over and over again.

i thought the movie was trying to talk about how people who are prejudice against something even though they were just in the same situation themselves. for example: in california a lot of african americans voted against gay marriage on prop 8. i think people are just blind to these sorts of things. history will be repeated over and over and over again.

This was one of three movies this summer that I was curious to see. Aside from District 9, I wanted to see Transformers 2 and GI Joe. I can definitely agree that this year has been kind of iffy as far as summer blockbusters go. I think they definitely had the right ideas in mind when they made the movies, but they just didn’t put them into action just right. Now, of course, Transformers 2 and GI Joe got mixed reviews, but for the most part were just bashed into the ground by critics. This kind of lowered my expectations for District 9, considering that out of my top 3 movies to see this summer, I’ve already got 2 strikes ahead of me. This one, however, seems to actually be getting a lot of praise from critics, and I was actually surprised to hear you give it a (somewhat) good review. So, I think I might actually go see this one sometime next week instead of just waiting for it to come to a budget theater (like I’m doing with the other 2 now).

As for your comment on trailers… The little act of putting in scenes that may not or are not in the movie is more common than you think. This was also true for the comedy Superbad, and the horror film Black Christmas, among other movies. Not to say that’s the only sin committed by movie trailers. But a trailer for a movie is not part of a movie, it’s part of the marketing for the movie, so if your in the meeting discussing how to convince the public to watch a movie, and the available footage may or may not be good enough, they’ll use whatever tactics available to them to try to convince you that this a totally awesome movie cuz so-and-so is in it, and so forth.

What was the deal exactly with the MNU? Were they a stand-in for the UN or a munitions firm like one of the interviewees said? If they were a weapons company, why the fuck did anyone not see a problem with putting them in charge of exotic technology? This would make a lot more sense if they were some evil megaconglomerate, but its never stated.

I agree with you spoony… the only thing that i would like to point out.. is that for some reason “I” feel that the aliens looked kinda… savages… i mean.. they are suppose to be a better race.. an advanced race… but i recall watching these scene.. that i dont remember that well… but i remember seen an alien.. walking like a gorilla…and they ate like animals.. i just think that that image wasnt representing what the aliens are “spouse” to be..(if they exist)…..
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Duuude. I normally love your reviews, but man you are being Incredibly Naive if you don’t think people aren’t this horrible in today. I’ve been spat on, had things thrown at me for my beliefs, in AMERICA so it’s not a remotely difficult concept to accept that hatred for something foreign this as much. Hatred and Racism is incredibly rampant, albeit much more subtlety in this day and age. Yes its an obvious metaphor for apartide but deeper than that its a message of how hatred towards rufugees and the homeless have lead us to a blindness that causes us to miss such obvious pains in our society.

Personally I love this movie, more than any movie this year. Including my current runners up, Up and Drag Me to Hell.

I haven’t had time to read each and every one of the previous comments, so forgive me if I’m rehashing what’s already been brought up.

As spoony said, you could definitely do a lot worse. I think Alien Nation handled this concept a lot better. It kind of irks me how a lot the glowing reviews its recieving are hailing it as a “completely new take on the alien sci fi genre”. It’s not a rip off of Alien Nation at all, but…to say the concept is new is just plain wrong.

I don’t tend to like allegory by default, which was a huge part of my problem with the movie. District 9 doesn’t “mirror” Apartheid South Africa…it more or less _retells_ it. And….the idea of retelling the story of one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century as a space opera kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Think about it this way: If there was a movie about the discovery that there are a peaceful race of aliens living hidden among us (Let’s call this alien race “Djoos”), and we, because of our evil racist distrustful human nature ™, rounded them up into concentration camps and starved them to death, loading their bodies into ovens… and this movie was called “Alien Auschwitz,” …would you be cool with that?

I’m giving an extreme example there, but hopefully you see my point…. and, consider this:

1. During Apartheid, the Black section of Cape Town was called (surprize) District 6.

2. After many decades of existence, the Apartheid government elected to make District 6 whites only, and _evict_ the Black population. Most consider their reasons to be the areas’ suitability for a harbor location, and as a profitable commercial zone.

3. The language of many of the native peoples of South Africa is Xhosa, which is heavily comprised of “click” type sounds.

There’s a large handful of others, but those were the ones that struck me in the face and kind made me roll my eyes at the movie. Thing is, once you get past the thinly veiled, bad taste allegory and hamfisted delivery of the message…it was an enjoyable little movie. That said, I actually like the short it was based on “Alive in Joburg” _better_…it just seemed to address the broader topic of racism, intolerance and all the badness inherent in that bad stuff we do to each other everyday(tm), rather than just be about the Apartheid specifically.

I learned much about South Africa from this guy’s videoblog

http://www.youtube.com/user/R3NDI3R#grid/uploads

ever heard of ‘othering’? The aliens being used in place of humans is getting to the heart of the matter a lot more than you think. Racism dehumanizes people, especially when segregation is involved. Look into the old school scientific arguments about blacks being a ‘lesser’ species, the absolute bs put out about womens bodies in the victorian era. The consensus was that the oppressed classes really WERE that different and they were different in a way that required someone to own/control/segregate them. The black people you are referencing might as well have been aliens in the eyes of their oppressor, they were seen as so inherently different that they could be treated so poorly. The “one drop rule’ about race that was written into us law for so long illustrates this perfectly. The book ‘the second sex’ is a classic in understanding the concept of othering and how it is used to oppress people in society.

Your optimism about the way people act about oppressing others is really really inaccurate. Ghandi was racist against black people ffs. The ideas we have of equality being written into law in a true way is an EXTREMELY new thing. Brown vs the board of education was in 1954, it really wasnt that long ago. Interracial marriage became legal in 1967. Japanese people were put into camps in the 1940′s. It was legal to rape your wife in a lot of states well into the 1970′s. Perhaps you will expand your world view as a result of this but yes, you are missing out on a lot of shit that is/was going on in the world that makes the world portrayed there a lot more realistic in terms of how many people give a shit about equality and fair treatment of human beings. A quick look into human trafficking for sex tourism (which isn’t at all like ‘taken’, btw) will show how far people have to come in terms of recognizing the humanity of others.

I think the “we don’t want to be here” line was cut because it could be taken as “immigrants don’t have to stay, they should go home”.

I have all the same problems (and more) with the movie. A sci-fi movie is supposed to look into the future, not retell age-old tales of suffering. A message from a sci-fi movie should be “this is where we’re at; where can we go next?”.

Alternatively, it’s good if it can raise the question, “why are we, being the seemingly good people we are, capable of so much evil?” This requires movies to give a fuller portrayal of humanity (Schindler’s List for a convenient example).

However, this movie, being so eager to express its opinion “these people are assholes”, is the farthest away from being capable of raising meaningful questions. It’s a “voila, here’s the bare naked message, please take it home” kinda deal. As a being capable of thinking, this just insults my dignity to no end.

Maybe it is a good thing if it can raise the question “are we really that terrible?” It’s a close-ended question that probably won’t get us far, but at least it’s something to think about. But then the movie’s already said “yes” to that. So now when we ask it, it sounds more like questioning the legitimacy of the premise of the movie than critically thinking about humanity.

On the “this is a movie with a meaningful message” count, I think this movie failed. If its message is indeed meaningful it’s the PETA kind of meaningful.

Not bad otherwise though.

I agree that the switch from mockumentary to a conventional movie perspective was a bit of a shock, though for me, it was the exact opposite of how i felt about it in the end. At first, I thought that was odd and was like “wait, there are no cameras, how are we seeing those Prawns … OMG! THIS IS DIFFERENT, GAH!!!!” But I thought it was a nice twist actually turning the film into a movie with a compelling story like in a natural sci-fi film. People keep saying the documentary part is the overall best part of the film. Though I agree that those scenes were well done and really set the mood, making me feel like I live in this alternate world where aliens came 20 years ago, I thought twice before dismissing the other style the film presents.

Because I ended up loving the story. I love having a film with characters I can fall for and want to see what happens to them. Plus it showed the reality versus what we see on the media, especially in terms of what else is going on in District 9 and the true colors of our main protagonist, Wikus. His character before his incident perceived him as just The Everyman, a pencil pushing humble little man who everyone seems to love. But slowly we see a little more to him. Granted, it presented itself in the docu. scenes when he committed that alien abortion … that was kinda off. But it progressed off camera. We saw a man who would do anything to get his life back in order, anything showing kinda the ugliness of human behavior and self-interest. He could care less about the Prawns, he just wanted his fucking arm to stop looking like a grasshopper leg.

My only real problem with the film was Wikus. He’s not a bad character, but he’s just all over the place. For every good thing he does, it seems to even out with something I frown upon. It makes it hard for me to root for him halfway through. He made up for it by fighting the MNU with his mech suit and saving Chris, which FYI appeared to pop out of left field so fast I went “wtf?”. I’ve gotten into countless discussions over this, and I get that it’s a dire situation and I don’t know how I would react if I was in that situation. I would like to think I would be a little more kinder to the only creature that can help me, and NOT knock him unconscious, fly an alien space craft that I have no idea how to fly, and if I get a mech suit and see my alien friend brutally beaten I like to think I WOULDN’T leave him. But that’s just me, maybe i’m too nice. I learned from those discussions that if you call someone a self centered asshole, get ready for a debate.

So yeah, I didn’t mind the shift in story telling style. I kinda think if it was 100% documentary style, it would’ve been a little stale. Cuss, call it dirty pleasure, but I enjoyed alot of the action. It feels like a homage to classic sci-fi battles, but amped up a bit with the guns a blazing and the humans who blow up like blood water balloons. The guns were pretty inventive, kinda like it the somewhat realistic weapons from Ratchet and Clank became real. Somewhat realistic being the big guns that go BOOM! Not the ones that turn people into sheep … Although, there was that part where he shot a pig at someone. XD Anyways, it was really entertaining and fun, the film had a little something for everyone … well, not really, but, a little something for a … few people? I dunno, I probably wouldn’t let my grandmother see it, but, you know what I mean. <_<

~

And as for the part about the scene that WASN'T in the film, my friend at work wondered about that too. He was actually disappointed when I told him that wasn't in the film. He said it was cuss some actor he liked was the guy interrogating the alien or something like that, I dunno. Anyways, I thought that was actually an ok move to not have it in the film. Cuss, 1) It'll probably be on the dvd anyway, lol. and 2) If they show some scenes in the preview and NOT in the film, it'll make the film seem more fresh. For instance, in comedies all too often they put a lot of funny scenes in the commercial, and we see those comemrcials soooooooooooo ooooooo ooooooo oooooo oooooo oooooo oooooooo ooooooooo many times that when we actually do see it in the actual movie, it's not as funny and the scene doesn't get the laugh that it deserves. If they keep a little away from us in the actual film, we'll take notice and take the scene for what it is. Now, while showing us a scene and NOT showing it in the actual film might seem kinda cheap, I think it's kinda brilliant and I wish more movies would do that in terms of advertising.

If they show us things we aren't expecting, then we'll react to it. Either positive or negative, but at least we'll react. I don't want to glare over a scene I've seen hundreds of times on the ads. There's no reaction there other than "yeah yeah, i know, 'we just wanna go home', i know". And, like I said, the scene will probably be on the dvd. Whether it be in deleted scenes or added on to the director's cut.

So yeah … I liked this movie too. =P

On a side, Spoony I would suggest you look up the Milgram experiment if you haven’t heard about it.

Milgram and his colleagues took regular U.S. citizens, and showed how they could give multiple 300V+ electric shocks to somebody in the next room, when the psychologists told them it was important to do it for a scientific cause (of course nobody was really getting shocked. the guy was just a confederate in a different room playing soundtracks of screams whenever the participant pressed the shock button).

So here we have it, regular U.S. citizens in the 60s, believing that they are giving 300V+ electric shocks to somebody who’s screaming in the next room, but carried on with it nonetheless.

The interpretation was that when people think they’re obeying the authority for a good cause, they can do really terrible things even when they have a feeling it’s not right. They don’t have to be real bad people to do this. It can be people just like you and me.

Still, I don’t think the movie even scratched the surface these ideas…

Spoony does come off as sounding a little naive in this commentary (I did facepalm quite hard when he said “South Africa has moved on from when it had these problems…(or something like this, that’s not the exact quote, but it’s close to what he said) ) but I don’t think it’s something he should be caps lock lambasted for.

I _think_ what he was more or less getting at with the “we wouldn’t be this mean to the aliens” comment, and perhaps didn’t explain as well as he could have, is that….even after 20 years of having the prawns around…..it’s a bit much to think that the WOW ALIENS, WOW WE’RE NOT ALONE IN TEH UNIVERSE thing would have worn off, even in the Racism Headquarters of the World that is South Africa. This is going to sound like an awful thing to say, but….we’d still be nicer to them than we are to black people, poor people, asian people, bald people, and men who walk funny because they just had a vasectomy. It’s a big, but not unignorable plot hole to disregard the fact that _any_ major university would pay out the ass to house and study them, and bend over backwards to keep them happy and healthy, even 20 years down the line.
It’s a plot hole that the movie asks us to ignore, and it’s….on the harder-to-swallow end of the “tolerable science fiction plot hole” spectrum, but it’s not movie-breaking.
That said, I think that was what spoony was getting at. Not that we’re incapable of nauseatingly horrendous acts of genocide, prejudice and hordes of other bad stuff, but that the aliens would still be special enough for us to treat them a bit better than how the movie depicts.

I think the racism towards the aliens was actually done a lot better than most are giving credit for. See, of course we would think the Aliens were be amazingly awesome upon first contact, but instead of the mastermind sentient race we get a ship full of workers with no one to lead them. Instead of being able to learn from them, we have to take care of them, a major inconvenience for those stuck with the task. They weren’t productive members of society. They didn’t have jobs, and communicating was difficult. With nothing to gain from the presence, we would begin to see them as children we’re being forced to take care of, and thats were the racism stemmed from. We were basically just waiting for them to die off.

Also one thing I believe many have overlooked is the fuel source that turned Wikus into a prawn. I have speculated that the prawns could have easily been way more human looking than what we see. My reasoning behind this comes from two points. The first being that they could reverse the process, and the second being that the prawns we saw were workers. Its my theory that the fuel they used was handled mainly by the workers, while the upper class would be able to reverse the transformation(since they could probably afford to do so) if they should have happened to come in contact with the fuel.

I had a problem with the documentary style approach because in all reality the real documentary would only be about 25 minutes. From what I remember of the movie, the documentary parts summed up to about 25 minutes right? Maybe it wasn’t the whole documentary, I don’t know but it doesn’t make sense to me. I still liked it though and it leaves alot to the imagination.

I liked your review, Spoony. Gotta say, though, that I actually didn’t think the humans were “too mean” as you said. Don’t get me wrong, they actions were horrific and certainly paralleled the persecution of Apartheid. What I mean is that I could absolutely see the human response to visitors de-evolving into the tragedy that was District 9. Maybe I’m pessimistic, but there’s a lot of corrupt people in power. The fact that I didn’t think it was mean is probably a sign that I should seek therapy. Who knows.

I DID, however, have one problem with the film which I am shocked that you failed to mention in your nit-picky review. The fuel… that powered the aliens’ ship… turns humans into aliens… really? The fuel? I realize suspension of disbelief is necessary, but this is honestly my one and only problem with the film. WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THAT FUEL?!

As with many of Spoony’s more recent videos, I have not been able to access this review of ‘District 9′. I was mightily disappointed by this, as I am eager to hear Spoony’s own thoughts on the film.
Does anyone have any advice?

As with many of Spoony’s more recent videos, I have not been able to access this review of ‘District 9′. I was mightily disappointed by this, as I am eager to hear Spoony’s own thoughts on the film.
Does anyone have any advice?

give the fuel question, given that all their tech work off of biometrics is it so hard to see that the fuel would have encoded dna in it. on the other hand just because it is encoded does not mean it should have the power to over write other dna.

I agree pretty much entirely with Spoony’s review. It felt like a great movie on paper but the execution still feels a little messy, it is however a better movie than most that’ve come out this summer. I think Spoony wanted to avoid spoilers so he didn’t mention the fuel thing, but yes, what the hell is going on with that fuel?! I don’t care how sci-fi you want to make something, fuel does not run people into aliens. Just watch, District 9 part 2, Christopher comes back and sprays Vickus with petrol to turn him back into a human.

glad to see I wasnt the only one who didnt like transformers 2…

ok so I havent seen the movie yet, but I’d like to, and after this review, I will =)
on the comment about the feel of the movie, that’s why I liked Cloverfield so much, it stuck with one style, was entertaining and still pretty effective.

I actually went to South Africa this summer and there really hasn’t been any major racist activities between whites and blacks for a while now.

All movies to me now days are crap, which explains why this summer we havn’t seen many movies with 5 stars. Movies to me are no longer fun, yet I do want to be in the know about what is happening in movie film land so well really I’d rather watch a 15 minute review by spoony telling me what happened instead of having to watch the movie. It’s just more fun.

Keep up the good work Spoonster!

xxx

This years movies were just craptastically bad. Even here in korea, most movies are just .. sooo bad.
I think the world has hit the lowest point in cinema histoy, probably lower than the mid 80′s and early 90′s.

I didn’t think district 9 was a masterpiece as most people does. and most of the reasons would be
the same as what Spoony has addressed.

The symbolism was weak, and I think they could have crafted the
stroy a little bit more, and , although some might disagree,
I didn’t like the ending that much. It wasn’t subtle enough, or may be ‘delicate’ would be a better word.. whatever.

But I would understand those who would consider this as a ‘Great movie’. It’s probably because the movies out this
year is just soooooo bad.

Spoony, you’re forgetting something I think. You make a comment that the aliens are not regarded in awe, like “Holy shit! Aliens!”. Two things i’d point out here..

1. The film is set 20 years after the aliens land, it isn’t first contact. After 20 years people would of got over the whole thing, more so if the aliens turned out to be (What seems) to be basic scavengers.
2. They land in a poor area, what little money there is in South Africa is diverted into the aliens who are basicly just taking space and doing nothing constructive. Hence why people hate them.
3. You say they are shown to be intelligent? Where? The general populous of aliens are seen trading for cat food and eating tires. The MRU (Or whatever it was) show that they are basic people, not understanding what forms they need to sign, etc etc. When they come across the smart alien they react like its a rather uncommon thing.

Side from those points, good sum up on the film. I agree about the jaring way in which it was shown (Half documentary, half action film), it seemed odd, but its still the best movie of 09, BY FAR.

to the people who thought that the it should have been all documentary or non would you have felt better there was a double cast? one too represent the the real people and a separate cast to be the “actors” in a reenactment. when every they were using what would be considered stock footage, like the security cams cough them on film, they would use the main cast and the other team for what is not. with the words reenactment in the bottom corner.

Gee, this sounds like a plan. Me, friday night, movies. District 9? Defintetly.

I kinda agree with you that.. Well, if aliens would come here, I would be friggin’ polite to them.
No matter what happens.

And dude, I’m proud of ye. Girlfriend? Dude, grats! :D

Well I do like the concept of District 9 and it will be something that I will have to look into some time in the near future. But if you think District 9 had a small budget you should check out the fantastic film Moon, it was made with only a budget of 5 Million and it looks so very nice.
Your concept for a documentary following the lives and times of people dealing with the alien arrival is pretty interesting and could make for a short film, but I don’t know if something like that could be built to be that dry and complex over at period of an hour or so to be an actual movie.
From what you said about the movie’s usage of the documentary perspective, personally I would have used the documentary idea at the beginning and slowly phased it out using it as a form of exposition that allows the audience to gain an idea of what the situation on earth is like before it all comes together with the main plot of the film.
Perhaps the metaphor of the segregation is a little obvious, but I don’t think that it would have to be wrapped in mystery and shrouded in all sorts. Sometimes perhaps you just need a simple message to get the point over.
Surprisingly though while there is not much Pro-alien material in the film there is massive amount concerning viral marketing online. All interesting stuff such as posters, online videos, kinda gets easy to be sucked into it an all. I expect what they where trying to do was to create a more sympathetic audience than they where characters in the film, they soften you up with all the marketing in the film and then you watch the film with about 90% of the audience on the alien’s side.

Part of the reason the humans seemingly universally hated the aliens was because at one point it was said that Prawns find activities like setting buildings on fire and derailing trains as “recreational.” I don’t think even the nicest person in the world would be willing to house, feed and cloth an alien that does that kind of thing for fun.

Huh, fuel. What’ going on with that fuel?

Gah. My “s” key is broke, had to copy/paste these four in! BTW, good to hear your thoughts, poony!

I think your critiques are fair, but I disagree with several of them. The lack of subtlety in the premise is a very understandable complaint, but I think it was more or less trying to prevent the notion of westerners being evil by having it stop over New York or Paris or something like that. I mean, that would have been a bit more subtle, but it would have also been extremely obnoxious, so the writer picked a wealthy African nation, South Africa, probably with some of that also having to do the apartide.

I think your complaint about the shifting POV is kind of nitpicky, I mean if it was distracting to you it was distracting to you and nothing I can say will change that, but honestly I hardly noticed it because I understood that on order to get the story out it needed to shift. Would you prefer he does the whole without documentary and we lose all those effective shots? I wouldn’t. I just went with it, but I guess it bothered you to much just to ignore it.

The humans treating the aliens like that is sort of believable, I mean its been 30 goddamn years, so I think the whole OMG ALIENS phase has passed and the, omg expensive creepy looking aliens, phase kicked it. They also made a point of saying that they weren’t the all intelligent super creatures we were expecting, they were essentially intergalactic serfs cut of from their leadership, so if their masters didn’t even respect them as equals, why the hell should humanity? Also, you saw humans protesting the state of the aliens, so not all humans were terrible to aliens, I’d say that humanity as a whole was more or less neutral and a bit frightened, with two loud minorities making their cases to the world.

Additionally, while your suggestion for how to show it all in documentary, about how the aliens fell out of love, isn’t a bad one, it isn’t the film Peter Jackson would have made off the script given to him. This was a good introduction to the setting, and he said he wants to return there in the future. So, maybe that will be the next one.

You are quite naive in thinking people can’t be that mean. Why even in America during the past century blacks have been horribly discriminated against in both the south and the north. Whether they were exploited for labor in the south or simply denied the ability to live amongst whites in the north and violently reprimanded if they attempted to resist either, for the past century African Americans had it worse beyond your possible comprehension. Thats why I believed this movie in that sense, because thats what happened with African Americans. They, in the north, were driven out of small towns across the nation and into the cities where they were forced to live in ghettos.

Anyway, I’m glad you did like it because it was by far one of the best things that Hollywood has pushed out in a good long time. I still disagree with a lot of your complaints, but I can’t argue against how you felt. I liked it a lot more than you apparently, but its all subjective anyway. Keep making those crazy videos, Spoony, and please try to do some Ripper.

Am I the only one who didn’t even know there was symbolism in this movie? lol.

It’s a sci-fi movie using certain concepts in it, regardless of if it meant something or resembled something, the story was as it was and it was entertaining; do we really need to go further?

btw, Humans ARE mean; we just happen to live somewhere that’s ignorant to most humans’ mean nature. We are being attacked by eugenics-believing people constantly, through many many means; if you don’t believe it, check out the textbook of 1000+ pages that Obama’s science advisor wrote in the 1970s; it explains almost every way how to kill people without the public noticing, and also infertilizing people so we can’t reproduce as much (thus easier to control)

I think the problem here is that most Americans, as you said, have no idea about apartheid. The honest truth is that there are tons of documentaries that got national release about the apartheid regime that deal with District 6, the real deal, and nobody saw them.

People just don’t care about the real oppression of our fellow man, but the average American movie go-er can and will get behind CGI Aliens. Is that insulting our intelligence? Well yes. But is it an accurate presumption? Well, yes and this kind of proves that since people are actually talking about Apartheid now that we have an alien substitute.

Though I agree with the POV critique, they could have easily cast someone else as the “real” protagonist in news footage and had a fake disclaimer that everything else was a dramatization for the sake of the documentary angle. But they didn’t go that way to leave any suggestion that the events as they unfolded didn’t really happen.
I’ll also add that if anyone thinks that this is some sort of skewed representation of how we’d treat such a race, be it alien or human, I’d say you’re dead wrong. I donate time and money to an NPO that helps out child soldiers in Uganda, and I can tell you that if aliens landed in that region and couldn’t fend for themselves but had usable weaponry, they would gut the bugs and sell/use the weapons without a second thought. These people brainwashed children as soldiers and sell disabled men and women as, sometimes literally, meat for their religious wars. There’s also a lot of money to be made in the illicit arms trade to the region, and some global arms companies and distribution networks still earn money off of the illegal deals that happen in regions such as northern Uganda and various other sectarian flash points.

yay, spoony has a new video with a good movie.

Yeah, I thought that it went a little too far to hammer in the aparthied reference too spoony so it wasn’t just you.

EDUCATION ON SOUTH AFRICA RANT AHEAD! WARNING!

My wife and most of my friends are South Africans, and believe me when I say that South Africa has NOT gotten past racism. Campaigns are still run in South Africa (or more famously in Zimbabwe) telling the people that they will never be a colony governed by whites again. Jacob Zuma, the new President of South Africa, is famous for his ‘theme song’ Bring Me My Machine Gun, which is a song telling people to pick up their guns and shoot their white oppressors. Zuma is a member of the ANC, Nelson Mandela’s organization that liberated South Africa from Apartheid. Their party line is still pretty much anti-white, anti-Afrikaaner, and they still get elected based entirely on the fact that they are associated with the group that stopped Apartheid. Many people think that South Africa has gone steadily downhill since that liberation, filled with crime and corruption and almost no help from the government. Hell Zuma was elected due to his association with being anti-apartheid despite almost being a convicted rapist and arms dealer. Those charges were just dropped because he was going to be the leader of the ANC. And hey, they stopped Apartheid and they’re not white or Afrikaans so they can do no wrong, right?

The movie (and the short film it was based on) is attempting to show people that racism is, at its core, based on ignorance and fear. And that all people – be they black, colored, Afrikaner, or English South African, or any other citizen of the world – are capable of being discriminatory in the way that Apartheid was as long as their is sufficient separation and fear present.

Also the story is supposed to take place in Apartheid-era South Africa (ca 1990), so in that context the symbolism makes more sense. The ‘non-humans’ are being treated in the same way as the rest of the population, so no one would think twice about the segregation.

But believe me when I say that South Africa is still a country defined by Apartheid and racial tensions and inequalities. Maybe not if you visit as a tourist, but the social and political structure of the country is still very heavily influenced by the actions of the white government, and the reactions of the new ANC government.

Also check out the 6 minute short film the movie was based on – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNReejO7Zu8

Anyway hope I answered some of the questions you may have had about South Africa. I know there are a lot of comments here, but hopefully if nothing else it will raise some awareness about South Africa as people try to answer these questions

Ah crap. After watching the spoiler-lite review, I forgot that the same does not apply to the comments.

Stupid fuel…

I liked the movie more than you did, but you definitely raised some valid points.

1. adding to the whole apartheid deal, I don’t understand why they never showed any HUMAN apartheid or at least never mentioned it, given that it was still going on when the mothership landed!

2. there was also the heavy-handed but justifiable PMC deal going on, with Multi National United.

3. the scene of the angry african youths driving by with machine guns in a jeep playing contemporary african music was like DIRECTLY taken from footage of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

4. I remember that the trailer for Superbad also had a number of those deleted scenes in the trailer.

I used to know a few white south africans (who are definitely not racist), and I’d like to hear what they thought of this movie.

Quite honestly the world is filled with cruel inhumane people. Think of the way some people treat animals, making them fight, slaughtering them by the hundreds of thousands ( and I’m not a vegetarian or anything) its just in truth I myself in 20 years of life living in America have experienced my fair share of racism or simply asshole natured people. Been called a worthless nigger by a teacher, some schools tried to put me in a special education class b.c I am black, and in my previous school I was in honors program. I believe that if aliens came to this planet, no matter where they landed, there would be people calling for blood. Many people would be pro- alien but just think of the way some treat illegal aliens from Mexico. We use them, pay them pennies for their work just b/c we can. Spoony the world is cruel and harsh and some people are stupid and ignorant enough to behave in ways we think of as being barbaric. Now while I can agree with you that some moments in the film were over the top when portraying the South Africans, I don’t believe that it would be unusual gang type behavior. Perhaps the movie wanted to show extremes to get the point across. But you must remember there were those completely unaffected by the aliens that continued to live life normally. I’m just glad it wasn’t boring G.I Joe.

I live in south africa. cant wait to see this movie. starting 28th here.
from the sound of it, looks like it will hit a few sour notes.

no matter what anyone says, there are still alot or racial tension in the country. alot of black people still pretty damm angry about apartheid, so they are taking it out on us white kids who had nothing to do with it. they created BEE, black economic empowerment, whereas companies are forced to hire black people even if they are completely unqualified for the job.
I have friends who have studied for years in university, only to be turned town for jobs because the goverment says they HAVE to hire black people. usually ones that dont even have highschool diplomas.
i know they want to “right the wrongs of the past” as they say. But 2 wrongs do not make a right. all they are creating is a new generation of people who hate each other.
I see new hate very day. saw the same signs in zimbabwe years ago… we are headed down the same path!
People voting for a “criminal” for president out of blind loyalty….. thats why africa is a giant craphole!
Im looking at imgrating to canada. and i suggest NOBODY immigrate to south africa!

District 9 was a apratheid settlement…. so alot of people will find thsi very uneasy…

I love you spoony, but i have to disagree.
I am a minority, on top of that i am an immigrant.
The prawns were portrayed in this movie as refugees. Any refugee would act like aliens in this movie, meaning they would be scared and lost. And every person is different as a refugee, some are military, some criminal, some low lives and some just regular lost people. I don’t think prawns are represented as blacks. You have to think that people in south africa were scared of them, you have to understand. Yes, people can be pretty fucked up to refugees in some countries, especially in Africa when people dont have shit for themselves.
You have a great point about the povs. But i liked it

I read some rather interesting reactions which argued that it’s actually a pretty worthless movie from a non-white perspective. Because if the aliens are the blacks in this metaphor, it is still up to the white/human guy to save them, so big white hero waltzes in and is smarter than they were. Not to mention to then also have barely any likable non-white characters, despite the movie supposedly dealing, metaphor style, with black white racism.

Yeah, the symbolism was laid on a little thick, but think about all the stupid people who go see summer blockbusters; You don’t release an intelligent movie in August. It was smart, but it was accessible, something that I thought was nice of the movie to do, and the reason I don’t mind it’s heavy-handedness.

My theory for the setting is that it is meant to point out how the REVERSE has occurred in Africa. A foreign minority (Europeans) are being oppressed, tortured, and killed by the native South Africans now that Apartheid has fallen. And many of these Afrikaners cannot leave because they either don’t have the means, or no country is taking them.

Trust me, South Africa has NOT moved past apartheid. There is still a lot of racism and class struggle.

I am actually pro apartheid. Everyone says, “boohoo poor Africans” Well, how about the thousands of white South Africans that are getting their land taken away and murdered at this point in time? I’m sure that’s okay though, right, because white people deserve it?

It’s been said already but I recommend you see MOON. Smart film, brilliantly acted, shot and written.

“I am actually pro apartheid. Everyone says, “boohoo poor Africans” Well, how about the thousands of white South Africans that are getting their land taken away and murdered at this point in time? I’m sure that’s okay though, right, because white people deserve it?”

Hit the nail on the head.

And by that I mean Apartheid was a better system than the existing one.

I loved this movie, disagreed with a lot of points said. Great Story, Great Characters, Great effects. While watching the movie I didnt really care about any of this. It was so unique and entertaining that the whole world and atmosphere felt so incredibly real.

Hey Spoony

I’ve just watched the movie and I have to say that I liked it a lot. In fact, to me this is the best movie of the year so far (Star Trek is close though).

This movie is not perfect, but, since I recently watched the dumb dialogues, the fake CG, the ultra-annoying comic reliefs in Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe, this one looks like pure gold.

I think it’s like going back to the classic sci-fi movies, and that’s a good sign.

By the way, many people don’t have a real idea of the amount of racism, hate and intolerance that are still present in the world, so talking about it is always a positive thing.

I got the feeling that the Nigerians weren’t supposed to represent the country as a whole, but just that certain terrorist group.

I disagreed with a lot of points you made on this movie Spoony. First, the metaphors and parallells WERE a little forced here, but at the same time, the plot couldn’t have been the same without it taking place where it was. The aliens had to be moved into wide open slums. Also, the Nigerians were essential towards the plot, especially near the end.

Honestly, making it a documentary wouldn’t have been emotionally distressful as it was. I loved the way it jumped from movie to documentary,as it allowed the movie to be up close and personal and intimate with the viewer, while also making the story more believable and wide open, really showing what would happen if aliens came to normal people, not just the main character. Also, making the movie start from Day 1 of the alien invasion would be either asking for a different movie completely, or a movie 3 hours long. I loved the fact that this movie managed to be only 2 hours long while still being as open to discussion and emotionally bearing as it was.

The gore was necessary. If there wasn’t so much gore then the viewer wouldn’t care nearly as much as he/she would about the main character’s health problems.

You dont believe humans can be so mean?
After thousands of years of documented history of horrendous human behaviour against ourselves based on minior differences such as race, religion or even ideology, you think for a second the human race would not be capable of doing this to an alien race, or even much worse?
Just ask a survivor of the holocaust if humans can not be this mean, or a someone who lived through Stalins reigime or the Khmer Rouge, and if any of these examples feel part of a distant past and that we live in a much more civilized society now, look at Gaza, and this is only to point a few non controversial examples.

Fun Fact: The Slum where they filmed the actual District scenes?

An Actual Slum In Actual Johannesburg.

The metaphor is still valid.

Wait, wait, wait…YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!? This is the most shocking news about the Spoony one since…well…EVER!!!

I thought it was one of the better movies I’ve seen recently.

(Bayformers and Trek? Atrocious in my opinion)

There aren’t enough scifi flicks like this one… Best film of the year (so far) in my opinion… fuck, best scifi flick I’ve seen in a VERY long time.

Oh, I may be mistaken, but the writer (or director) grew up during Apartheid in Johannesburg, and I do recall an article claiming that we got his point of view during that time.

Just saw the movie, enjoyed the crap out of it, and it drew me in so well… That I barely even noticed all the parallels between actual apartheid and what was happening to the aliens.

But, I had one question…

Why weren’t other nations stepping up to help improve the living conditions of the aliens? There were a million of them. Only a million. They had superior technology and intelligence… But no nation would step up to try to learn anything?

I honestly can’t believe nations wouldn’t be routinely trying to backwards engineer the weaponry, or even the systems on the mother ship. They had pretty much any access to the stuff they wanted. Why weren’t a lot of other governments stepping up to try to get their hands on this stuff?

And don’t give me that crap about the UN. Historically, the UN has been about as useful at stopping countries from doing what they want as a no-armed pitcher trying to get a single strike-out in The World Series.

You can’t tell me that if a powerful nation wanted in that country for anything it had, it wouldn’t be in there. You can’t tell me all the major superpowers wouldn’t be JUMPING at the chance to get at that stuff.

I only read about half the comments so I apologize if this has been brought up. The part about the Nigerian gangsters eating the Prawns is not so far fetched. It is very similar to how albinos are treated in certain sections of Africa such as Zimbabwe and NIgeria. Albinos are seen as magic and are said to not die but merely fade away. Very few Albinos survive due to being killed and used in rituals not unlike the ones seen in the Movie.Also in other parts of Africa women are routinely killed on suspicion of being a witch. A massive riot at a soccer game that killed a number of people was started when someone said a soccer player was using witchcraft If people are willing to do this to people then they would do it to aliens

I would say that the “brute force” of the story is refreshing. The film did not pussyfoot around the issue, it presented it directly. The issue of nobody bringing up how the aliens are being treated like blacks were is IMO intentional. Racism didn’t go away, it just transferred to a new target. This is a movie operating on the assumption that people DO NOT learn from their mistakes.

As for the documentary style for the beginning, I think it had a couple of advantages. First, it lets the film give a backstory without having some weird omniscient narrator. Second, it allowed a little more leeway in letting potential plotholes slip by. With a traditional third-person omniscient camera, you can ask “why didn’t see what happened to X, Y, and Z?” With the documentary, you can just say “we didn’t see it because the camera man can only be in one place at a time.” It also lets it introduce several plot points that become very important later on.

Hey Spoony love your reviews, I agree mostly with your criticism but for one thing, the vast majority of the Prawns where barely smart enough to talk (ie the scene where the one answers the door and says that they are not in). As they where much less intelligent than your average human, and couldn’t even really explain why they where stuck on Earth to begin with.
The sense of disappointment must have been overwhelming as instead of God-like super sophisticated beings, we got a million barely cognitive drones that instead of bringing wonders just take up resources.

“Spoony”………. Though I see your point with respect to the lack of humanitarian aid and sanctuary for the prawns, a parallel can be found in WWII Germany during the holocaust. Logic would dictate that more people would have hidden jews in the cellars, or even stood up to the government for that matter, but they didn’t…. it just happened with little resistance from the majority of the population. Though I agree with you that somewhere in the world, either some government or large-scale humanitarian group would have made a stink about the treatment of the prawns, I believe they were trying to draw the connection to the apathy of the German people rather than creating a more realistic scenario.

I think part of the problem is that the movie moves very quickly, especially at the beginning. What Spoony should recall is that, the aliens supposedly landed 20 years ago. We probably were really fascinated with them for the first few years, thinking they were some kind of gods or had answers or, obviously, wondered if they would be willing to let use their technology (i.e. weapons)….but that didn’t happen! Their technology was useless to us, the ship became an eyesore, and the aliens were stranded now on Earth. Eventually that fear and wonder turned to bitterness and hatred, and the fact they were so different from humans just made it easier to isolate and discriminate.

If anything, the main questions the film asks is “What does it truly mean to be human?” Not just about stirring up feelings about aparteid.

Even though the Spoony One has lost much of his allure since finishing the FFVIII review I still trust his movie reviews. Thanks.

“Even though the Spoony One has lost much of his allure since finishing the FFVIII review I still trust his movie reviews. Thanks.”

It has been about a month and he’s had five or six videos up. How the hell can you say that? Seems a bit disjunctive to compare a body of work that he spent years making with a month.

was down to south africa earlier this year , and theres a lot of subtle and nonsublte rasism everywhere , just wanted to point out so you know =)

Thanks for the review and I really did enjoy this movie.

To answer the POV changing: usually professional storyboard writers or writers in general want to keep a consistent POV or theme throughout the movie as to avoid confusion or undermining the viewer.

Here’s a bit I didn’t really understand: how is it that the fluid used to power the Prawns’ more complicated machinery has the outlandish side effect of totally reconfiguring the DNA of anyone who ingests it into a Prawn? That’s like if one of them drank some gasoline and underwent a transformation into a human, it just doesn’t hold together as a concept. I would have absolutely no problem with this issue if their technology was biologically based (a la the Wraith from that mediocre Stargate spinoff) but no, they use what appears to be metal rather than living tissue, so that whole bit just feels awkward if you really think about it.

Other than that, District 9 was easily the best movie I’ve seen all year, and it will probably be a good many months before anything comes close to topping it.

I havent seen this movie yet but, the south africa thing is a bit weird seeing that was like a very long time ago and I’m sure the africans don’t really think about that anymore, so it was more reminding you of your shitty past

Hi, I’m actually a natice South African living in Texas today, but just to clear up some misconceptions of offensiveness that spoony brought up about us S Africans and the Nigerians portrayed in the movie. First of all, I grew up durring the apartheid era (I’m almost 55 now). There’s still a lot of racial tension in S Africa, but in retrospect most of the white population feels somthing similar to what you Americans call “White Guilt.” We will always regret the decicions that were made, but we should never forget them. Second, the portrayal of those Nigerian gangsters is spot on. No, I am not joking. I worked for a company called Executive Outcomes after I retired from the military. EO was a Private Military Company. Most people would refer to us as “mercenaries” though (PS the I found the portrayal of PMC’s in the movie as corrupt scum to be a bit of a cop out. It seems mercenaries are the new russians for your american films.) But I served in Sierra Leone durring it’s Nigerian backed revolution fighting agains the RUF. Canibalism and voodoo are a huge part of most west african rebelions and reveloutions and bush wars. The majority of rebel forces are druged up 10-16 year olds that were kidnapped out of their villages in the bush were voodoo practices are common. A good friend of mine was killed and eaten not to far from Freetown. Shamans would place invisibility wards on their soldiers, who would charge our lines, firmly believing that we could not see them even as we gunned them down from 30 yards away. You westerners can never understand the chaos and horror of bush wars. Anyways, I still thought this movie kicked ass.

Racism is well and fine trust me. And it’s not in any danger of leaving anytime soon, trust me.

As for people being that cruel… … yes when you deal with money some people have zero consideration of human life. You’re perhaps lucky to not see how destructive some people can be, in time perhaps you will see. It’s all about power.

The movie is definitely worth a study and group discussion, id see this as something we could go over in film class, trust me, their is a lot to the movie.

What were the prawns before they came into contact with the mutagenic fuel?
I wonder if the alien overlords are more or less “human” than their worker caste.

Heyy soony, i sadly havent watched this whole video yet, but i did see the part where you say you dont understand how the people could be so mean to the aliens, seein how we should be amazed by them. i think its because they’ve ben on earth for 20 years and givin just about nothing back the earth which they’ve been living on for so long.

also me and my friend sean think you awsome(Y)

“What were the prawns before they came into contact with the mutagenic fuel?
I wonder if the alien overlords are more or less “human” than their worker caste.”

This is one angle that I wish would had been delved into further, though in the context of the movie I don’t think it could had been satisfactorily explained without going off the deep end with the sci-fi element. I kinda imagine that the alien upper class would be normal looking human types who changed the worker class into these bug-like drones in order to make them more complaint.

I don’t know. In a certain sense, you could say that people are overly evil and generally jerks in this movie. But there’s no real way to know how this big social clashes could turn out. When the Spaniards first found a new world full of gold and different people, the first order of busyness was to ENSLAVE the new people to force them to get the gold. Sure, today we have the human rights bills and activists. It’s still entirely possible that those aren’t applied to other intelligent beings.

I really liked the movie. Half Documentary, half drama, half kickass action movie. Best film this year, by far.

Rambo, the weapon in the movie are genetic based, my guess is that the spray was a little similar, like a concentrated, genetic base fuel… it was my own little explanation. So I think that the alien in the movie evolved from insect-like creature… they were never human (star trek alien) kind of race.

re: hard to believe that such wide-scale cruelty could still exist.

read this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3161033&pagenumber=1

all of it.

With regards to the documentary/action composition of the movie, I just want to bring up that switching styles can help keep otherwise boring scenes interesting in addition to helping the audience keep interest in the movie. Starting with a drier, less intense documentary near the beginning (when the audience still has full patience for the movie) can help deliver a number of important details around the setting and plot. Then, when the switch occurs, the audience is able to delve into that aspect of the story. Then, when the POV switches again, the audience understands what exactly will be revealed and gets into a different viewing mode, one that’s ready to recieve information. ^^

The alien mutagen thing was a little out there. I’m sorry but in the context of the movie it was hard to swallow. I realize that if they cut that aspect or altered it in some way it would be a completely different movie because, lets face it, its largely what the half the plot is about. So I can forgive it.

The racism and contempt for the prawns is the product of twenty years of them mooching off the human race. At least how the humans see it. There is also the inherent xenophobia which you have to admit is going to be out there. There might be sympathizers out there but I assure you would be very far away and not have to live with the reality everyday. That being said I can’t speak for how the individual factions were portrayed because I am basically ignorant as to what they are really like.

If you liked D9 you should watch the short film its loosely based on…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le3y0QlLjJE

I though the doc/movie type filming was great.
Gratify people that enjoy the story, check, gratify the people that like action, check!
It was like watching the best of Matrix one, story wise, combined with the best of Matrix 2, action wise.
Man if Michal Bay made movies like this, but kept hes action skills…
Also, the main guy was a really good actor.
Just think of how many scenes he did staring into empty space or a green screen.

I feel you are a bit naive about Apartheid Spoony and how it worked, but I didnt view this movie as a remembrance of Apartheid. Too me it was more a warning that this could happen again if the circumstances are there and that we should not forget history if they happen. So, the story was great, but it had a few plot holes as well. 9/10.

First off I’d just like to say I love what you do, I’ve never seen a single game review of yours, and not been incredibly entertained. Even if I occasionally disagree I can still see where you’re coming from, and love the way you say it. That being said I hope you can take this more in the sense of constructive criticism. I don’t really agree with almost all of the things you said that were negative about district 9, and don’t get me wrong, I know you said you liked the movie overall, but I have an argumentative personality and I feel I need to say this.

While I could go through point by point and pick out everything you disagree with, I won’t. It’s annoying, and most of the things you said are opinion based, and simply impossible to argue effectively. That being said, it is a real thing that nigerians eat animals, in some cases endangered animals, in the hopes of gaining their power, or curing diseases, so no I did not find that offensive, it is simply part of their culture.

The main thing I want to say though, is I don’t see the treatment of the aliens as unrealistic at all. You said they were shown to be intelligent, but they really weren’t, we saw 3 throughout the entire movie that had any intelligence at all, the rest were shown to be not very bright at all. This was actually mentioned at one point in the movie during a documentary like scene when they mentioned that the leadership had died for reasons unknown. The way I see it is, the aliens came down with a large amount of devastating weapons, humans being the incredibly hostile and untrusting race we unquestionably are, sectioned them off. Because these aliens are not exactly intelligent the area quickly became incredibly run down and became slums, this brought in gangs, crime, and just lowered public opinion further. It is easy to see how after 20 years, Humans would just want them gone.

Also I see where you are coming from with the pov shift thing, though it didn’t bother me. What did bother me at first, but I quickly got over it, was that the humans and aliens were speaking two completely different languages, but could both understand each other perfectly, and nobody even casually mentioned why. It never shows a single person in the movie that needs a translator or is even slightly less than fluent when speaking to the aliens.

SpoonyOne is one of the nitpickiest movie reviewers on the planet. I still care about your general, “like” or “dislike”, but as for the actual complaints, wow, no offense but your reviews can be pretty damn tiresome.

The movie isn’t JUST about apartheid BTW. People are still looked down on for being different, minorities discriminated against and so on. That message still stands. It hardly weakens the director’s message to make it so closely about apartheid.

Oh great, and we get a political correctness rant. Give me a break spoony my man, ridiculous!

I see District 9 as one of the coolest, funnest, best ACTION movies to come out in a LONG time. That’s first and foremost what this movie was to me, an action flick, and it was a damn good one. People are getting too hung up on the message and wanting more depth to it and whatnot.

Cheating? What the hell? It was just a unique, creative way to do it. Frame story with a documentary, neat stuff.

Spoony here is describing a COMPLETELY different movie then what District 9 is, as far as what he would have LIKED to have seen goes. I mean shit, tough luck if it wasn’t the movie you WANTED it to be. It’s not the filmmaker’s fault they gave you an awesome, fun action flick instead of some documentary style alien expose.

Hey

I trust the spoony one with review…. but being a South African I must say that the violence and gore and just the way the humans acted around the prawns does happen in South Africa there is just I don’t like you because your different in fact in 2008 there was lots of Xenophobia violence going on in South Africa and in fact some people were actually burned to deat because they we’re different some be headed some just slaughtered and this is all because there different and being a South African I was insulted on how stereotypical they were during the previously mentioned Xenophobia my family kept our gardener and maid from Zimbawbwe at our house so they wouldn’t get hurt….. but there is racism lots of it….. I won’t say what Blacks are called.

But still Great Review and keep it up!!!! ^_^

Urkel with Guns

P.S need more Cinema Snob!

Did you really think racism was a thing of the past Noa?

I think thats whats making me apprehensive to see this movie…the spectre of racism in south africa back then and the incredible amounts of violence race causes down there today would be hanging over the film.

the movie explicitly states that the aliens were just workers, not engineers or scientists. so they didn’t really know shit about how their technology works, so everyone kind of lost interest in talking to them after that.
it isn’t at all unrealistic to see creatures from a different planet isolated in one place. not only because of security reasons, and because of all the many parties, government and private, who want to study them. but also because do you really a super-strong giant bug-man who is incapable of speaking any human language living near you? i like to think of myself as a fairly enlightened person, but having mysterious extraterrestrials capable of using crazy ass halo technology living in my neighborhood would make me feel uneasy. maybe they would find a way to use their advanced weapons against humans, who would be basically helpless if they did. maybe they would really stink. maybe they would piss and shit all over. maybe they would spead horrible disease, cause in the movie they totally did!
it’s one thing to expect that a person from a foreign country can adapt to modern western society. human beings are basically all the same thing. space aliens are one heck of a wildcard and i think it’d take more than a couple of decades for anyone to get used to just hanging out chillin with them.

America is giving weapons and false reason to fight to people in Darfour, so no they’re not only looking the other side.
That’s like your remark about “civilised” country. Go and watch which kind of people you got in “civilised” country prison and in those from “uncivilised”.
That’s how you rate a society. In which countries prisons would you find people who slaughtered their family with a hatchett or ate their parents?

And racism is not disappearing at all.
You think Nazis are history when they are stronger than ever, they just target another kind of people now and they rule the “civilised” world.

i truly believe that if the movie made you question that human beings can so cruel to each other or anything else, then it absolutely did its job. dude, i totally understand the naive idea that we (im generalizing of course but it just makes things simpler to type) couldnt or wouldnt betray and degradate sentient beings, but hell, the founding of this country was based on that. africa is a whole other world, where violence is governance and beauty is rampant. personally this movie really touched me, because the message i worked away with was a man, who callously unplugged and burned the embryos of intelligent creatures and laughed, would lay down his life in the end to save a family who would abandon him and smile.

of course, im not going to bash you, because i too am also white, and though i grew up in south central, i didnt experience direct racism. its the nature of our creed not to fuller appreciate such things. this movie though certainly helped bring home though. spoony, youre terrific and i trust your opinion and look forward to all youre future projects.

btw, just to be clear everyone, transformers 2 was more racist than anything ive ever seen! D9 may have painted nigerians in a bad light, but seriously, i was looking around me all during rise of the fallen, waiting for a black dude to shout “WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?”. transformers 2 disgusted me, at least D9 made me believe again. are robots hatched from eggs? how the fuck are they hiding? in D9 they dont hide, and their as tall as basketball stars, but theyre not 4 FUCKING STORIES! oh hollywood, thanks for destroying my childhood and raising my emotions all in one summer…its like summer camp with less molestation.

Too bad this movie is going to come out here in Italy only in october. The trailer made me very curious (finally not just a film about mean aliens, which want to destroy the inferior human kind) and I heard people talking in a really good way about this movie . So, I really can’t wait it to come out!!

As a screenwriter myself I can say that the transition between documentary and traditional style film making was very jarring. I think that this could have worked if they introduced the normal style shots earlier in the film. Anything can work as long as you establish it in the film’s continuity early on.

As for the trailer you’re talking about, I think that was more of a teaser intended to give us a brief look at what the movie would be about and get us excited. These are often filmed separately from the film, usually during post production when the marketing team has decided how to promote the film.

Also, yes, people can be that mean. Remember, this movie’s main plot takes place twenty years after the alien’s first arrive. They explain briefly how humanity was taken with them in the beginning, but slowly got more and more tired of them, and I’m glad the movie wasn’t just about that. That feels more like a back story then a main story, and if the movie had shown in detail everything that had happened, we wouldn’t really have many main characters to attach to. And while you’re saying that the aliens are intelligent, it seemed to me that Christopher was the only intelligent one, meaning the only one that could read and understand complex things, which is pointed out when Vikus tries to get him to sign the eviction notice, and he’s the only one that can read it. They made a point of saying most of the aliens were likely part of a working class, with an intelligent leader, like ants. Which made sense considering their insect like appearance. I gathered that the intelligent leader was Christopher. My major problem with it was that Christopher just left his people, after it seemed like his big motivation was to save them all. Also, when you consider how poorly people are willing to treat other people, it should not really be surprising they would treat alien life forms even worse. I can easily see things unfolding just the way they did in the movie.

hey spoony, yeah I kind of agree with you there. I really found it hard to believe that everyone could be so mean. They weren’t just mean, they were ass-holes. Even the main character was a douche and he only sympathized with them at the end because he was becoming one of them. I was seriously expecting at least a bit of protesters or something like that, to show us that there are at least a bit of people that are good in Africa. And seriously, are Nigerians in Africa really that barbaric? I mean damn! Maybe I am wrong and it really is that bad down there but that doesn’t stop me from believing that that was a bit too excessive. Whatever, just like you I’m not very knowledgeable in that field. Still good review and I still enjoyed the movie a lot. One of the best movies this year even though that’s not saying much. I still think that Defiance is the best movie this year.

I havn’t actually seen this film yet but I definantly want to see it sometime. I’ll probably watch it sometime before I go to NY, but anyway with Nigerions or however its spelt, my family once looked after one. He kinda got on my nervs because he was over zealos with his religion and refused to believe that there could be any other life forms out there in the universe, which the idea I find rarther stupid. His name made it obvious that he was from a family that was over the top with religion since his name was “Godspower” and I am not joking.

All in all, that’s my only influence I have of Nigerions so I can’t say much but I do hear on the news about the stuff that happens over there. It shows up on the news quite a bit over here in the UK, or atleast it did recently, but I don’t watch the new that often, too depressing.

Finally a movie with a enough depth to stur up talk, and not just slamming because it was a waste of time and money to see. D9 well go on my shelf when it comes out on DVD right beside Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, and many other really good modern classics that deserve praise.

I personally loved the camera work, I really had no problem with coming in and out of scenes, because it was used effectively at the right moments, unlike in other movies where shakey cam is used to hide inperfections, in D9 it often shifted you into the drivers seat just enough bring you into the action, but pulling back to see the whole story was necessary to prevent Cloverfield syndrome.

As for the plot, I was uncomfortable at many points, cringing at the extent of the hatred and inhumanity of humans…”popping like popcorn” as Vikus talks about the buring Prawn eggs made me very happy I didn’t get popcorn that day. But that was the point, at least this movie had some sort of point, in your face or not.

And if you are confused about just how phobic and bad humans can get just look up Rwanda genocide (or many others). When I was in post secondary I had a physical antropology prof who spent tme there after the genocide counting and trying to identify the (literally ten foot tall mounds) dead as simplily male or female, adult or child, let alone anything specific. He brought pictures, stats, and we had a project based on the subject, one that kind of changed my view of the world. So ya, humans can suck…or can be generally great…depending on our motivations, superstitutions, ability to forgive, and the ability to understand what is different.

I totally brought the idea that the “Prawns” were hated, because instead of being E.T. here to save us and make friends, or the bad guys that only Will Smith could save us from, tPrawns were just tarving refugees that we had to help. Just someone elses left overs instead of all our dream or fears coming true. Few had little reason to like the aliens, and certainly it’s bad reporting to show anything postive on the 24hr news cycle when everyone else hates it; and the movie captured this very well.
.
I had a sense that yes perhaps this was a different South Africa compared to the real world. Or perhaps the Prawns where just a good excuse to continue, or deflect the well oiled mechanizm of Apartheid so the pencil pushers and middle men would still have jobs. Without giving us the entire back story and only hinting at it, it was an effective story telling method that has created alot of speculation and talk. Made us wanting more…and not in a bad way.
Serious there should be NO Sequel. It may ruin the magic. Though Jackson could probably pull it off.

Maybe I was just in the right mood that day, but D9 goes on my top 20 favorites of all time.

BTW sorry for the spelling errors. forget to spell check :)

If you check out the fake MNU site at http://www.D-9.com you can see a list of the rules the aliens have to abide by and it’s pretty similar to a slave labor camp; they can’t own anything, they have to work in mines (owned by the MNU, natch) six days a week, they have to have permits to have gatherings, they have to always carry an ID card with them, and they can’t ever leave District 9. A set-up like that is doomed from the start, but the location of this extraterrestrial DP camp sort of makes sense because the spaceship is nearby, so the government/MNU can quarantine all of this in one area (and possibly early on the powers that be were hoping that the aliens would put their society back together and leave.) BTW the film film was actually shot inside a township (a formerly segregated slum) outside of Johannesburg.

wajack, I read the entire US prisons thread at somethingawful.com and although I had read/seen reports on how hellish our penitentaries can be, it really drove home how the system is an absolute failure from arrest to parole.

Hey there. I really agree with you Spoony on a lot of points.

I found the movie the entertaining, but I didn’t actually like it.

The documentary parts were great. – I was like “Cool a documentary on aliens! It’s gonna be interesting!!!”

Then it went to the eviction operation (which ended midway kinda) – I was like “this is gonna be similar to ‘Black Hawk Down’. That’s also interesting!”

But it degraded to ‘Mutant vs the Transnational Corporation.’ That became boring and predictable.

So why I don’t like this movie is cause it has this great idea and documentary style and then ditches it for blockbuster approach. That’s just sad!!!

BTW, I negatively reviewed it on a site, where there’s 130 positive to 6 negative reviews. And I got flaming PMs for being a bad person and reviewing a movie so low. But after a few days the negative reviews started piling in. There so many people after who didn’t like it far more than me. it went to 200 positive and 36 negative reviews. And the positive ones are usually “It’s awesome 10/10″ while the negative ones actually better written and motivated.

P.S.: After watching the movie I (being ignorant of Apartheid) thought the movie was about racism and immigrants in the US (also called ‘Aliens’ right?) but I was corrected by my bro. But I found that also lots and lots of people saw the movie as being about US immigrants and racism… I agree that apartheid fits better, and the director is from South Africa. But it’s still interesting that I wasn’t the only one to get that impression.

I thought it was really good, though I actually maid a conection between the jews in world war 2. Probably becouse I don’t know much about apartide. One of the problems I had was that the human lead was not the most likable charecter. I think it was that scene when he had the nuborn aliens torched… then described how cool the poping sound was. I still feld kind of bad for him by the end but those scenes at the begining stopped me from feeling really sorry for him. Like if he had of died it wouldn’t have botherd me that much.

I too was wondering where the pro-alien people were. I thought there would be more of a prominant movement. Maybe a “Sentient Rights” movement or something. However I wasn’t really surprised with what the corperat types were up to. Maybe it’s all the Resident Evil games but that didn’t shock me in the slightest. In fact the only thing I thought was strange was that it took them so long to bring out the alien for testing/exicution…. the canableisam was pretty messed up though (yes I know it’s not really canableisam but you know what I mean).

I also found it hard to belive that the “controle modual” for the hole huge ship was that little shuttle. Maybe it’s an alien thing.

I thought the alien kid was awsome. That scene where he’s all exited with fixing the machine, and when he’s comparing his arm with….. the humas, he was adorable. ^_^

About the scenes that were in the trailer but not in the movie. Perhaps there going to have a more compleat mockumentary in the DVD releace. Like a spesial featrue that would be the full documentary that was being made in that world.

Anyway, I thought it was a grate movie overall and I’m definatly going to see it agen with my friends.

*CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED*

Spooney, It’s nice to see there’s still some idealism. But you’re right, you are somewhat naive but that is a trapping of idealism. District 9 is regrettably a more accurate portayal of us as a species. We’re used to films showing us a more flattering and enobling picture of us, But simply this is wishful thing. District 9 was more a commentary on us as a species then the aliens. Ironically the ‘Prawns’ are more of a sidenote.

Going for a purely documentary approche for this film wouldn’t have worked because A) doumentaries are biased, B) are watered down. And yes the metaphore is about as subtle as a freight train, But that’s the point. Finally someone has the balls to put it right in your face rather then pussyfoot around for fear of offending people. This goes beyond the metafore for the Apartheid in South Africa. This could have taken place anywhere in the world, The results would have been the same. The point of the film really is how selfish we are as a species.

The aliens arrived 20 years ago, And at the time they were welcomed and had a sense of wonder. But once people realised they were mere refugees and didn’t bring their advanced knowledge and their technology proved useless to us, they became a pariah for people. ‘Not in my backyard’ became the motto. The ‘Prawns’ became subhuman, Yes they’re not human but still intelligent and sentient, And by the looks of it, not hostile either. Still they were taken advantage of in any way possible.Ghettoed, Ripping them off, piss poor living conditions, violation of rights. Experimented on and exploited. It’s not just racism, It’s our very nature. Fuck the Nigerians, It’s all of us where are given the ugly stick here, And we deserve it.

Even Wikus (the human protagonist) Is betrayed by his own family for money, his life is ruined when at first he was one of the many who were abusing the Prawns. Even later on he is selfish, thinking only about himself, Helping one of them only because he hopes he can be fixed, and sabotages the aliens work because he wanted to be ‘fixed’ now instead of later.

At the end of the film, I was basically wishing the ‘Prawns’ would return to wipe us out. There is not one sympathetic human in the entire film, the worst part is it would probably be true if this really happend.

To me, the movie seems a little superfluous. By the time you get to the generic action movie tropes in the end, the film has morphed into a kind of Crash-esque critique on race relations that seems to think the statement, “Racism is bad, mmkay?” is profound.

Yes, racism is bad. What are we going to do about it? I’m assuming we’re supposed to feel the sting of racism vicariously by the main character’s transformation via genetic gasoline. But considering that the end result of this is not so much an attempt at a cultural shift in understanding as it is a way for the main character to do generic action movie things, I think the film fails in that regard.

It reminds me of Minority Report in a way. An interesting premise, a potential to draw out deep discussions on a serious topic, and it all ends in well-worn plot points that don’t do anything for the theme at hand.

This guy is the shit at making reviews

One point you might be overlooking is the quirk of discriminated minority groups to immediately jump on someone even lower on the totem pole than they are. Note the treadmill of American immigration in New York where first the Irish were the targets of discrimination, the they beat up on the Italians, who turned around to beat up on the Jews and Blacks, who now look down on the Hispanics. Wherever you go on this Earth the newest person off the boat is bound to be the target of discrimination even by those who previously that same sort of abuse. As the old saying goes, shit flows downhill. Previously oppressed black people in South Africa oppressing poor low class alien bugs isn’t just plausible, its downright likley if they ever had the chance.

If anything made me uneasy it was the extremely contrived nature of the plot. The whole situation required a whole multitude of pre-conditions to almost render any object lesson moot. The aliens had to be useless low-class violent drug users. Their technology couldn’t be reverse engineered. There only seemed to be one alien that had any ability to speak coherently and have valuable skills. It’s a problem when a Sci-Fi movie begins to seem far fetched and with all of these extraordinary elements did not have sufficient backstory to explain them away.

Another big problem I have been having is with the pre-release viral marketing tie-ins (as you briefly pointed out). If you go to faux websites MNUSpreadsLies.com and Multinationalunited.com you will see the whole theme of MNU being a classic corrupt Megacorporation on the scale of OCP or Weyland-Yutani which really didn’t cope up as much in the film. There’s all of this subtext about the aliens being used as slave labour, which really didn’t come up in the film. In the film the prawns weren’t slaves, they were just useless, low class poor people. I guess if they were being secretly enslaved by MNU it clears up some of the implausible plot elements, but the movie really didn’t make the point very well.

I don’t really have a problem with the Apartheid theme beyond the fact that the time for that theme to have impact was about 30 years ago. I think the movie should have shifted tone a little to focus on the emerging problem of socio-economic segregation and discrimination. Here you have aliens that have very few skills and its simply easier to wall them off than to try to deliver social services and assimilate them into the population. I could tell that while the setting was Apartheid there was another theme of immigrant labor and issues with assimilation just screaming to be given proper attention. District 9 is a fusion of Alien Nation and District 13 (that French Parkour movie if you remember it) where the desperately poor aliens (which stand in for Turks, Packies, Wetbacks etc) are seen as a burden to be dealt with as cheaply as possible. I think that the Director was partly blinded by his own memories of Apartheid to see how the issues have old have morphed in the last two decades and lost out on the chance to have a powerful message relevant for the 21st Century.

I also felt somewhat let down by the rather straightforward ending. I don’t mean other prawns show up and kill humanities ass, but something that nobody would see coming in an Outer Limits sort of way. My idea would have been to have a ship show up with a distinctly non-insectiiod alien race on board that apologizes for accidentally having their “trash” end up here and then begin to portray some extremely racist views re the prawns that force humanity/humans to realize what they have been doing and if they should try to help the poor slave race or let their masters clean up the mess. Now there’s an interesting plot twist :-)

I think this movie demands a sequel because it gives one the chance to show a message beyond “Apartheid is bad” which I think we all agree with. The message that needs to come across is the benefits for everyone when tribalism is put aside and sentient beings work together. How does one show this? Humans and Pawrns working together to fight whatever master race stuck them on the slave ship to begin with.

BTW Spoony, why did you pick District 9 as your Summer Movie of Choice over The Hurt Locker. That movie was just excellent and completely devoid of any let down aftertaste.

Spoony has a girlfriend O_o?!?

This movie is definitely pretty divisive between ‘extremely impressed’ and ‘a little let down’ and I think that it has a lot to do with the perspective that you view this movie from. A lot of the people that I know who weren’t that impressed were those who seemed to be viewing the movie as an analogy of apartheid, which I admit seemed to be the aim, or as a movie about aliens coming to Earth. Indeed, most comments that I have read or heard have been based on the setting. However, if you approach the movie as a telling of the story of the main characters and their overcoming of adversity I find that this movie comes together brilliantly.
Speaking as a scientist, zoologist and South African I had every reason not to enjoy the movie as much as I did. I only really thought about this aspect after the movie had ended, but the setting, taken on its own, does not do much to suspend disbelief. The social and politically treatment of the aliens was by no means realistic (for one I’ve heard that in the event of alien contact the UN has jurisdiction on communicating and dealing with them, not any one particular nation), the concept that alien goo turns you into an alien is scientifically laughable and yes, the analogy to apartheid is ham-fisted. Additionally, taken as an aliens come to Earth movie, people are often left unsatisfied because of all the questions left unanswered and implausible aspects. Speaking to those who’ve had gripes with the movie, it has been the general setting that left them not liking it, or at best being unable to consider the moralising along with the gun-toting action. That being said, it’s still good to see that the setting of the movie has inspired so much conversation, which like most things about this movie is quite rare.
However, while watching the movie, none of these things came to mind as I was completely captivated by the story of Wickus as a fugitive wanting to get back to normal and of Christopher Johnson and his son wanting to return to the spaceship. For once there was a movie at the cinemas where I actually cared about the characters and their motives, eagerly wanting to see them make it and not even knowing for certain whether they would. Their were times that I was literally holding my breath or actually on the end of my seat, which was quite good considering that I normally can’t help being disappointed by a movie. Additionally, I found that their emotions were brought across well, something rare to find, especially for CG characters. This is probably because I cared about them as characters. They weren’t shallow, but had flaws and strengths that shifted over the course of the story. From a story and character orientated perspective the movie is exceptional. Furthermore, the whole meshing of the documentary and cinematic approach is not an issue, as this ends up being the best way to put across the different aspects of the character orientated story across.
If you were one of the people who weren’t impressed by this movie, or haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to put the racial allegories, the aliens on Earth, the science all on the backseat and go to watch a movie that centres around a small group of characters. You won’t be disappointed! I’m not sure whether this was the intention of the movie makers, but it’s why I enjoyed it.

As to the Apartheid, you must remember it’s a fiction movie, and all fiction movies really exist in an alternate world. If the Apartheid was never mentioned, it only makes sense to assume, that in this world, it didn’t happen, and that the alien segregation and poor treatment is a more modern kind of replacement for that.

Aliens, AND the people? This is the same kind of racism that caused those times. There is no separation between any people on Earth. They just adapted to their environment. OOOO. Any intelligent sentient being is a person. To define them as anything else is to invite the same kind of discriminatory action that has happened in the past.

I also don’t see how it insults South Africans, again, you are dividing people, where there is no division. They are people, the whites there were people. They discriminate in the movie, whites discriminated in reality. I don’t see the damn difference. The only people who would actually get offended by this are the kind of over sensitive people who would rather be called horizontally gifted than fat. I’m fat myself, get over it. I have to agree on the Nigerian part there, though.

On the shift from the “I-have-a-camera” approach to the smoother video, I have to say I didn’t even notice when it happened. I just eventually kind of understood that, because it wasn’t shaky anymore. I didn’t mind, and even enjoyed that because it allowed the movie to move away from a kind of, this man is doing this movie, to a movie where I could relate to the characters.

Also, AWE? It takes place TWO decades after they came to Earth. People lose awe a lot faster than that. I’m surprised anyone would care very much after five years, never mind 20.

With your approach of the documentary. Yes, that would have achieved sending a message a lot better. The problem is that it would have been a lot less interesting to the average viewer.

The way I interpreted it was that there were automated instillation around the area with missiles and other weaponry. Im not sure if you missed those parts, but I think it is fair to assume there was more than one.

Okay, first, trailers are generally made BEFORE the movie editing is done. Second, there was about twice as much footage and scenes filmed as was actually IN the movie. It’s still a bit annoying, but you have to accept the circumstances before you comment about how it affects you personally.

All in all the only point you made I agree with is the negative view of Nigerians. The rest I either didn’t agree with, can accept because of the circumstances, or think were pro’s.

My regards,
CJ

i don’t know what theater you went to but i saw the interagation scean there wassen’t really anything more than what was in the tralier but it was there.

also you commented that there wasent enough people protesting the the mistreattement of the aliens wourld wide. but you have to remmember that district 9 was run by a ginat corperation do you actually think that they would let the truth of distict 9 get out into the general public…no of course they would not. People in europe and asia and the amerias had no idea of what was going on. kinda like the concentration camps

all the brutall news footage was proboley brodcasted in gohanasburge (i have no idea how that is spelt)

the movie is an instant cult classic no matter what critics say, i really value your opinion spoony, but this was really harsh. if you did a smidgen of research about the film, the original short “alive in Joburg”, takes place while the apartheid is still in effect, about 1990, so instead of trying to erase, take away, interfere, or be overly symbolic about it, they tried fitting it in. the message was that, ‘if humans can’t realize that we are not only one equal species, but have one equal consciousness on earth, than how would we react to an inter-stellar species with needs and feelings’. it had a few flaws, but it seems like you would have found those flaws much more mundane and unimportant if you liked the films message more.

I must say that not believing that people could allow aliens to live in such conditions is rather naive. After all, we are perfectly willing to let people who belong to the same species as us to live there. The movie was shot in a real slum, from which people had just been evicted with no place to go. The documentary questions in Alive in Joburg, the short film on which the movie was based on were actually real people questioned what they think about an ethnic minority.
If we can be that cruel bastards to each other, we sure can be that to creepy-looking creatures from another planet. Especially if we don’t even know what their normal living conditions are, and can’t clearly see if they’re suffering that much. If the Prawns can’t or won’t help us humans significantly, then the chances are that they wouldn’t be that nicely treated in real life, either.

The issue with the film, and its message, is quite simple to explain. If you’ve seen the short film upon which it was based, you will see both a brilliant, and unsustainable message. The short film inter-cuts interviews from the ACTUAL APARTHEID (as well as 1 fake interview), with the footage of aliens. In the interviews, you hear repeatedly “they’re not human, they’re not like us” [mild paraphrasing]. The idea was that you see people saying that about aliens and you think, “oh, yeah, you’re right, they’re not human, that makes sense!”, but then you realize “but wait, they were talking about PEOPLE!!! HOLY CRAP!”

Do you see where that fails as a concept to apply to a feature? Its a simple concept, one that only works as a demo, unfortunately. But you were right in your review, the movie was enjoyable, and the effects were the BEST I’VE seen since the ORIGINAL Jurassic Park (creatures). Hope that helps your confusion.

I think somebody else might have said it, but you should really find a theater showing Moon if you still can.
You said this might be the best/most intelligent/etc summer movie so far, but Moon is really where it’s at. Any fan of Sci-Fi should really get out there and support this movie.

i mostly agreed with spoony on most of the stuff he metioned. The only think i didnt agree with him on was how the people had little to no amazment about the aliens that came to earth because when the aliens (non-humans) they didnt come with advance technoligly (besides the ship its self) and they where basiclly hobos with no resorces. so the didnt make our lives easie, in fact they just mad our lives harder because i’m sure they we’re just a strain on the economy.

I agree with with you on most of these except for how you said that the people were too mean to these aliens and had a lack of awe, but i think that the reason why the people weren’t overwelmed by the fact that there were aliens was because its been decades since the ship came and because most of the aliens were arguably just drones and therefore couldn’t teach the humans any new amazing science they just saw them for how the media portrayed them, for example at the beginning of the film you saw news reports of aliens rioting and how they killed humans and how the humans grew to hate them and started attacking them, now my complaints with the movie fall on the plot device that is the magic black liquid thing cause seriously your telling me for 20 years no south african found something from the ship and got some of the liquid on themselves.

I just realized a severe bit of irony thats going on here. District 9 was released about the same time as The Cove, a real documentary about how humans in another country are interacting with a comparatively alien intelligent species that also communicates via clicks and other non vocalizations. If you haven’t heard the movie is about the horrific dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan and shows what humans are capable of even with a species that is the epitome of cuteness. Hopefully this real life documentary will have the same effect as the fictional documentary in District 9 in raising awareness and forcing humans to confront something that they would otherwise uncomfortable to acknowledge.

Although you did make a few good points, I believe that this movie meant to appeal to a wide audience. For those who like deep, intelligent, profound thoughts, maybe the documentary approach would have been better. But this movie also appealed to those (like myself) who ALSO love in-your-face, good old sci-fi action. True, the perspective was kind of inconsistent, but in my case, the suspension of disbelief was held well enough for me to enjoy the gun fights and explosions most of all.

I dunno about comparisons with The Cove. If nothing else, I doubt the space-prawns could match dolphins in sheer deliciousness.

I preferred this film over Moon. Not saying Moon was bad… no. Just that this film (District 9) was far more entertaining and glued together well in my opinion.

I didn’t like the ending of Moon. I felt ripped off when the one guy was all “I’m going to go and tell everyone”.

I really liked the end of District 9. The robot was badass, and I really liked the documentary footage of the hero and his wife at the end. I got chills down my spine when he pointed his gravity gun at the Nigerian leader.

I thought this was one of the best sci fi films made in a very very long time.

Then again, I never saw Sunshine nor Serenity… Those movies didn’t appeal to me like this one did. It felt a little like star wars (classic), a little like Starship Troopers and a dash of Alien Nation. All of which were damn fine sci fi flicks. I saw it twice. and loved it both times.

I think I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t fight more in his suit.. But that may have taken away from the message.

Hopefully it’ll be out on bluray soon. =D

I think you kind of missed the point of this movie a little bit. Most of your arguments were for the documentary thing, but the point of the documentary was to show the human point of view to get you to identify with one side and then turn it over on you with Wikis’s personal story living with the aliens. Basically, the plot isn’t about the aliens, it’s about Wikis. If you accept that, the rest of the movie makes more sense. Believe me I came out of the theater with the same arguments as you, but after discussing the movie with my friends, I think I understood it better. I also thought the scenes toward the end where Wikis sacrifices himself for the aliens were very powerful and moving. I went into this movie with exactly the opposite mindset you did, I didn’t think it was going to be able to make me believe the plight of the aliens enough to sympathize with them but it did and I think that is the success of the movie that we middle class white guys can gain some idea of what apartheid was like.

“…didn’t believe that such cruelty could still exist on such a wide scale…”

You really don’t believe that? You don’t believe in racism diminishing the value of human lives in our ‘modern’ world? As an American, whether you are aware of it or not, you are part of the most racist country in the world. Look at the Iraq ‘war’: 1000 Iraqi dead = 1 American dead. One American soldier dies in the field and you bring him/her home like a hero, but in the same breath you say that a ‘tactical’ missile strike missed it’s target and destroyed a school full of Iraqi children, oops. Where’s the love? Like come on. Is it really so hard to think that people would segregate, torture and experiment on non-human lifeforms?

*SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

I see a sequel, District 10.

The end left me wanting more. I wanted to know if Cristopher comes back for Wilkus (how ever you spell it), if MNU gets defeated by that Japanese company (check on the website, it says something about a Japanese company trying to take MNU’s place and end the segregation, and what life is like in district 10. Other than what Noah said, I have no more complaints.

The company is called Takahashi, I think. And the website says the MNU’s contract will run out soon, so I want to know what happens.

Spoony. At best two people were touching on correctly what the movie was about for the last 260 comments.

Some of the documentary parts were actually compiled from a real documentary conducted by the director asking South Africans how they feel about foreigners being in their country. None of those people making comments about the Prawns were actors.

This movie isn’t a hamfisted commentary on apartheid but an indictment of how much the people cope with themselves and (possibly illegal) aliens. Even then it is a very tame indictment.

Secondly the whole deal with Nigerians being portrayed as crazy gangbangers is the stereotype that South Africans hold for Nigerians in general. This is another indictment on the sensitivity of their stereotypes.

Thirdly speaking of stereotpyes the main character was also a stereotpye of the typical South African bureaucrat. In fact his entire name is supposed to be a tip off to this stereotyping. It would be like naming the character in your American action hero Badass McGuff. So unlike our American stereotypes of bureaucrats the SA ones are more trustworthy to not backstab you for political reasons. They just happen to be total idiots and will screw you over out of sheer bumbling incompetence :p

@TheInterbutt
There is nothing about you that I like.

If someone has already mentioned this, please forgive me.

It seems that if the reason why prawns aren’t smuggled out of District 9 to live with the more open-minded people of the world it would be because the prawns would probably rather just stay together. If you want to understand this mentality, check out PBS’s documentary on the American Indian Movement, particularly episode 5 which talks about the incidents that occurred at Wounded Knee (not in the late 1800s but the incident that occurred in the 1970s which fewer people seem to know about today).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/the_films/episode_5_trailer

The Brady Bunch Movie also ripped us off for a scene from the first trailer. District 9 villainified the human race to such a degree that I felt utter glee when the lightning weaponry would pop a soldier like a water balloon.

Hey Spoony I admire your hope in humanity and your disbeleave about there cruelty, but what the racism that was portraid against the prawns in all it´s violence is still happening among us humans. Racism is a big topic in South Africa, even without apartheit. Think about how long it was till in the US black people where fully accepted even after they were guaranteed human rights. So there is still black vs. white racism. But what is very sparking over there is the black vs. black racism. Africans out of war strucked countries are fleeing into South Africa. There is a very high tention between refugees and residents, with violent riots.

Concerning the Nigerians. Yeah, if I was a Nigerian I would feel insulted…. But things like that are happening, in Africa. For instance in Simbabwe (and other countries) albinos are hunted because there is a superstition that parts of there body (flesh, brain, eyes etc.) have healing powers. They are so endangered that they have an albino spokesman in the gouvernment!

i couldnt really get into the movie, i didnt like the awkward main character (reminded me of Borat somehow) and yeah the whole setup is kinda unbelievable, nobody would put aliens in some ghetto in africa and ignore them, nobody would give control over them to a weapons manifacturer, the movie is just to cought up in its message to be anything but blunt and preachy.

1. The portrayals of cruelty here are tame compared to reality. I am being very serious.
2. I think it needed to be both a documentary and live action at the same time so that we could experience both the personal experience and how these actions were perceived by the world at large.
This is important because usually in these situations, we only get to see the news coverage, and not experience what actually happens.
3. There might be some kind hearted people, but no one that could or would support over 1 million people. Think about it this way, if we are not willing to relocate and help groups of people that we know are being killed off in active genocides TODAY, how could we expect anyone to help these aliens.

Hi Spoony,

long time viewer but your comment on Nigerians and how they are portrayed as crazy for wanting to eat aliens made me leap in and post, Voodoo and other religions have cannibalism as granting an aspect of “strength” or as in Voodoo it is called Juju. Albinos are killed in Africa and chopped up for Juju medicine and eaten. Here are some articles about it:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/19/81059/4947

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/16/tanzania-humanrights

It is a serious and real issue and as such not so crazy or left of field or offensive, ask an albino Africa!
All the best
Lars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQlUM6hWKy0

Personally I liked the movie, compared to other summer blockbusters released thus far, I felt this District 9 delivered a quite entertaining package overall. >> Commenting on someone else comment the main character reminded me of Murray from Flight of the Concords. :D
On the note of misleading trailers ( It really bothers me), I can think of a few off hand that had scenes / lines that I was expecting and was disappointed to find out the theatrical version omitted; funny people, and stepbrothers= ( The rock of Gibraltar line).

I agree with most of what was said, However I think the symbolism was easy to look past. Just forgive a few of the plot holes and say- “Well if they explained everything perfectly the movie would just be too long”. The main problem I had was with the character development. Especially Viccus! I mean he is some lacky who is put in charge of re-locating the aliens and actually aborts a whole shack of alien baby’s. You sort of want something bad to happen to him because he’s kind of a bastard initially. But by the end he’s risking his life in a robot suit just to see the alien and his kid get away from the planet. Wait a second? Like ten minutes before that he knocked the alien out in his shack and tried to steal his ship with his alien son in it!!! Then his dad is getting beaten by goons and almost killed and he starts to fly away!!! Where was he planning on going? Seriously! AND why had nobody ever investigated the ship that was hovering just above? No guards, No scientists, and simply no guess at what its doing just hovering above? What’s it like inside? Why did nobody think to check this out! Anyway, those are my two main gripes, but overall it was a good movie I thought.
‘

I agree with many of the points made in your review. You state that the fact that the movie takes place in South Africa makes the apartheid comparison inevitable. While this is true, the comparison between South African apartheid and the conditions presented in the movie is not an exact analogy. South African apartheid represented a tyranny of the minority (whites) over the majority (blacks). A better historical allusion to the type of segregation shown in District 9 may be the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

While the crime of apartheid in South Africa went the way of the dodo in 1994, there is still widespread poverty and the type of slums shown in the movie exist to this day (in fact there is a recent NPR story about the slum that the filmmakers shot for the movie). This shows that, in at least some way, the film is not anachronistic.

Is it just me or does the review break off about 4 minutes into it?

All while I was watching the movie, I remembered what you said about it, and I have to agree with you, especially about the style. At first it’s all documentary, cameras, believable angles and whatever. I think the first time it splits from that is when we go into the alien shack and they’re talking… which I thought was the point that the movie became a bit unrealistic. The person I was watching it with actually turned to me around the time that Wiccus is on the run, near District 9, and said, Hah! The camera is STILL following him!

It confused the hell out of me early on in the movie when they abruptly switch from documentary style footage to just a normal movie. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, what time period the normal footage took place in, anything. So yeah, switching back and forth like that was a little…odd…but other than that I fucking loved the movie.

good movie, best so far this year (that ive seen).

One thing that bugged me. The Prawns have been here for over 20 years and its taken MNU that long to figure out how to make their weapons work!!

DNA weapons people!!

Have they not watched Judge Dread yet?????

8)

I almost completely agree with the points you made about the film. The only thing I would add is the TERRIBLE camera work. There were too many close-ups and the camera was constantly shaking. I could forgive some of those when the film was in documentary mode, but when the point of view changed to the regular fly-on-the-wall perspective, the same jaunting camera work applied. And about the people being mean to the aliens, me and my friend thought that every. single. person. in this movie was a complete a-hole. You could argue about Wikus, but don’t forget he described the burning of the alien’s eggs as “popping popcorn”. A subtle metaphor about abortion? Maybe.

Damn you, Spoony! That was a bloody Ausie accent you were putting on there! We sound NOTHING like those wallabies!

Just saw the movie today. It was fine but i kinda agree with spoony on the “Apratheid theme”. It felt kinda forced.

Did anybody notice that what happens to the main character is a ripp off from The Fly ?

*SPOILERS*

The aliens are very stupid compared to humans. They are, essentially, drones (as was pointed out early on). Without a leadership caste they had no direction, no real intelligence. That impression is further reinforced by the high price of cat food (it would be very easy to get it through other channels) and, during the ‘weapon suit’ selling scene, the Nigerian who kills the alien comments that Prawns always believe whatever they are told.

When Wikias meets Christopher for the first time, he comments that Christopher is unusually bright. That he does so within ear shot of Christopher further reinforces the impression that Christopher is far more intelligent than the average, tyre chewing, soldier assaulting (whilst unarmed and surrounded by armed nutcases) drone.

That’s why Christopher is so important. It is strongly implied that he is the last/only leadership caste on planet except for his son.

That nobody would like the ‘stupid’ creatures who are ugly to look at, have horrible personal habits/lifestyles and soak up millions of Ran and valuable space and resources should not be surprising.

More controversially perhaps, I felt that South Africa was an interesting place to set it. I don’t think the writer was saying ‘Look! Apartheid! See! See! Look!’. I think he was saying that countries that have been victims may well go on to victimise others in the same way they suffered. And/or something along the lines of ‘having fought so hard to gain access to resources/jobs/equality we aren’t going to share with others. “Maybe if they were from another country, I might understand. But they are from another planet.” was (I think) a direct quote from one of the documentary’s interviewees.

However, I don’t think the actions of MNU or the government were specifically characteristic of South Africa. I strongly suspect that any developed country/profit orientated corporation would be a total bastard to aliens that offered nothing in return and appeared to have no power of retribution. I struggle to think of any country who has an open arms policy in regards to immigration, and that’s towards fellow humans. Let alone beings that are described as ‘Prawns’ for their looks and lifestyle.

In terms of the different filming styles: I did not find it particularly jarring. Perhaps it was because I approached it as a film which included documentary footage, rather than a documentary with film footage. Or perhaps I simply didn’t notice the dichotomy.

Anyway, a very thought provoking film.

Sounds like Spoony has no idea that racism is alive and prevalent today as it was at any other time in history.

I do agree on the confusion of why these aliens origins and background, but it was those exact questions which really drove the suspense and had me begging for more about this world. But definitely, I wanted at least a more solid background to help with the ‘suspension of disbelief.’ But in a way, not knowing everything left my imagination to fill in the holes. Which is definitely thrilling to me.

As for the whole issue about human cruelty, it is as real as it was depicted in that movie. I know people from Africa who say the fighting is terrible over there. But because I had accepted this fact as a reality, the movie didn’t feel “SHOVE IN YOUR FACE” about the issues. The focus isn’t on the issues. I felt it was only to set up the mood and setting of the film.

Also, the switching over has nothing to do with a lack of script. Either it was written that way, or the director took it in that direction. But if it was solely a documentary, then I wouldn’t have liked it. AT ALL! Those movies are getting real old. This style of switching between perspectives wasn’t perfect and a bit confusing, I admit.
But it was inventive and a thinking out-of-the-box style. Which GOD KNOWS we need more of in this movie age!
Definitely the most original movie attempt I’ve seen in a long time in my years of learning film.

To be honest, I think it would’ve been better as a film the whole time.

I am not mad with you dude. I know a LOT of people are, but even though I loved it, I can understand your gripes. I just wanted to address one thing. The film takes place in an alternate present, not the future. It takes place in a universe where Aparthied never happened, because before it could the Aliens showed up and started this whole mess. So this IS this universe’s Aparthied, which is why no one in the film thought it strange. Just wanted to bring that up. Your fan, Roy.

lol Noah
not believing cruelty

some governments destroy their own landmarks and people, only to be able to go to another country, kill them and take what belongs to them =P

you dont even need to think as far as Nazi Germany to encounter large scale cruelty

and whoops today is September 11

*Spoiler*

I definitely agree with Spoony on the shifting from Doc. to feature film being jarring. Lets face it, it’s not a style we see a lot of these days. Come to think of it, I am a little hard pressed to pull up another film I have seen do it except for maybe “Battle in Seattle”(which still was pretty different, and not well done). Here is where we disagree, and I think it was easy to forget about in retrospect. You literally see the starting point where humanity loses it’s wonder with the “prawns”, when they cut into the ship, gain entrance and have their first encounter(which was extremely fucking disturbing, and well done). You see the prawns crawling around in their own filth, and dying from malnutrition. We also learn that the majority of the ship’s passengers are workers/drones, and that the prawns have a “Hive” like society. Cut to twenty years later, and the aliens have worn out their welcome with many of the South Africans. It also can’t help to have a massively impressive but not exactly eye pleasing ship hovering over your city.

Another thing I haven’t seen mentioned much is the music by Clinton Shorter. Which was created, and used in expert fashion. I really only think of one thing which still bugs me a bit, is how Wikus (or should I say Prawnkus?)
becomes “infected”. It’s obvious whatever the prawns where siphoning from their tech was converted into something else(which closes the accidental contact infection by other humans plot hole). Still maybe I missed some explanation but I would love to learn the specifics of what happened to make Prawnkus. Why the hell would their fuel change humans into prawns?

I hope you burn in hell mother fucker.

well I can say ( and I dont know if it was stated before, it could have been) but the nigerians do still have issued with voodoo and canibalism.

also to the guy two spaces up from me, not 289, that guys just a douche. but if you want to more on the speculation of the fuel changing people into poleepkwas ( thats the actual name of the alien species) then check out MNUSL on face book or find it through http://www.mnuspreadslies.com . ill give you a hint tho…. nano bots. and noah, I encourage you as well. and may I say even though there are points in which i was like “ehhh I think your a little off” It was a great non biased review of this movie that has indeed provokes massive discussion. examples given MNUSL on facebook. its like a continuation of the movie.

you really want to see people in support of the poleepkwa? go to the site.

And i’m sorry for the late comment but for some odd reason my computer, even though its a mac, seemed to have major issues with this site. meaning? i get the spinning beach ball of doom as we mac users call it. its the equivalent of the hour glass that wont go away. A true horror indeed. and enough to make you want to though your computer in the microwave oven just to laugh histerically at the sparks that emulate from its melting surface.

But great review and very understandable. hope to hear from you. ciao for now.

I know it’s late to write here, but I just saw this movie and Doug was absolutely right. It’s the dumest thing I saw in years, I laughed through the entire film.

This movie was such garbage. The plot is basic, unoriginal, boring, and just plain sucks. I've seen 45 minute episodes of star trek which sum up district 9's plot, and do a better job with less time and budget. It's like someone took Half-life 2, Black Hawk Down, Transformers and smashed them all together. It's so derivative. The producers took all those film elements and threw in the basic plot of “man mistreats group” – “man becomes mistreated group” – “man fights on behalf of mistreated group because now he understands their plight” … ZzzzZzzz…like we haven't seen this before?

The other things the film touches on would be more interesting to explore, however this film doesn't do it. Very bland. Very black and white. Very one dimensional. Very boring.

This film was a rarity for me. I left the cinema going huh….do i like this film or not?
I couldn't decide the brute force as you but it was pushed on the audience too much and kinda spoilt it a little but not a lot.
I didn't like the sudden change from documentary to normal camera style which you also pointed out.
All in all this is a film that you should see but only once in my opinion.
It's not a film you wanna see twice or it might spoil your first experience.

yeah, all that you said. good stuff. i meant to say some of that, but mine was getting too long already. but yessir, dead on. especially the thing about chris being possibly the last of the leader caste thing was something i picked up on as well. and i never felt like i was being beat over the head with aparthied either. i think that element actually helped to show that people who had previously been horribly oppressed suddenly standing alongside the very people who oppressed them to point and laugh derisively at someone even further down the social food chain than they were, having a good gaffaw with their once mortal enemies about the stupid bug eyed folk. I think there;s a message in there for sure, but not the one spoony walked away with, a much more subtle interesting one about that whole “i always have made war with my brother, but i will join forces with my brother to make war with my neighbor” thing

I hated this movie with an intense fiery passion.

It just wasn't good at all for so many reasons, why are a bunch of aliens retarded and only some retained their super-intelligence, why does the “evil” protagonist give a shit about aliens after he turns into one? Is it because hes an alien now? are they trying to convey a message about racism?

3 years??

Horrible movie.

This was a movie about waving a lesson in your face, neigh, SHOVING it in your face and if you ignore the super-secret-encoded message about apartheid it is a movie about getting gay with aliens the likes of which have not been seen since ET (queue boos!).

This movie is preachy which i don't like, the animation is sub-par and mostly wasted simply on the aliens, ship or ghettos, the battle scenes are brief or so sudden they are nearly non-existent and the protagonist's position makes NO sense, there was no character development leading up to him changing his mind, he just gets turned into an alien with some fucking crazy alien magic and then fucking poof, empathy for aliens.

BULLSHIT I SAY

BULLSHIT

You make the ending to your preachy movie a preachy cliché??? really??? best of 2009? alright, maybe, 2009 sucked pretty hard but still.

District 9 was apparently a more developed version of a independent film that the director made which was a documentary style film. The film consists of interviews with people saying how these “aliens” are dangerous scum that should be driven out of Johannesburg. What really happened was the filmmakers interviewed these people about their opinions on Zimbabwean refugees and diverted the focus onto aliens through editing.
The “prawns” represent the refugees and the sentiments towards them that people had were pretty realistic.

I felt that I could connect to this movie not from a racial minority standpoint, but from an immigrant/refugee standpoint. The aliens were definitely intelligent, as evidenced in their technology, but when they are displaced from their own planet the shock of being thrown into a completely different culture changes them. They suddenly become animal-like and simple-minded. They become exploited by the native populace and become addicted to drugs(cat food), Its a tragic, but very real story presented in a different way. We(Americans) usually only see the racism issues in it because most of us don’t have that kind of experience in our history, or because they have blended together in our minds.

Why is it so hard to believe a superior alien race could end up living in the slums on Earth? The five-star general from a wealthy family in his own country becomes a dishwasher in a cheap restaurant in ours.

Meanwhile, robot suits and spaceships and aliens and gore, whoohoo!